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Doryanthes coming into bloom and much resembling a century 
plant, and other plants. 
It is, however, the two large groups which form the real interest 
of this court, groups accustomed to widely differing environments. 
In one of these it is water which plays the important part, and 
in the other it is the absence of this element. The plants, how- 
ever, are so nicely adjusted to their environment that each kind 
thrives in an environment which would be destructive to the 
other. 
GEORGE V. Nasu. 
CENTURY PLANTS AND SOME OF THEIR USES. 
“Doesn't it have flowers till it’s a century old? Has this one 
been here a hundred years? Will any of us live to see it bloom 
again?’’—these and ten thousand like questions are fired daily 
at the patient attendants near the plot of desert plants in the 
Bronx Botanical Gardens. For the wondrous century plant pre- 
sented to the gardens by F. T. Holder in 1901 is now in gorgeous 
bloom, to the delight of all beholders. 
The fifteen-foot stalk with its magnificent clusters of tropical 
blossoms draws continual crowds to the court of the public 
conservatories. To get there go to the end of the Third Avenue 
“L’’—and there you are, in the center of Fairyland. 
On warm, sunny days the flower stalk sometimes grows three 
and one-half inches in twenty-four hours, and records of six 
inches a day are on the books. The blossoms, often as many as 
a thousand in number, cluster on the short side branches, the 
lower branches coming into bloom first. 
After flowering and seeding, the plants die, but previous to 
this they send up numerous suckers by which the species is 
propagated. These plants are often referred to as cacti, a com- 
mon mistake because of the thick, fleshy leaves, which are spine- 
tipped, and often armed along the margin with sharp teeth. 
The century plants are not cacti, but are members of the amaryl- 
lis family to which the common garden narcissus and daffodil 
belong. 
