154 Extension and Use of the Cacti. 



of late years for plants that have formerly heen neglected. Palms, tropical 

 Orchkleae, and Cacti, formerly only few in number and rare in European 

 collections, now occupy a large space in our hot-houses, and reward our care 

 by their luxuriant growth ; and the value that is set on them increases the 

 love for their scientific cultivation. 



The Cacti are found in their native country, either in a wild state where 

 they spring up spontaneously, or where they are cultivated as useful plants. 



The Cacti in the wild state, are found in all the warm and temperate regions 

 of the new continent, extending to a latitude of more than 95°, and from 

 the level of the sea, near the equator, to a height of 1,500 ft., an extent 

 which few families of plants of similar limited localities possess. They also 

 extend, in a cultivated, wild, or doubtfully wild, state, over a great part of the 

 warmer countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. 



We will, in the first place, speak of those in the wild state in America. 

 The most northern point in which the Cactus has been found growing wild 

 is close beyond the boundary of the United States, on an island in the Lake 

 of the Woods, about 49° of north latitude, where Captain Back and his 

 companions were very much annoyed by an amazing number of very prickly 

 opuntias, growing among thick low grass. They are also found in abundance 

 in the western part of the country, of which Hooker says in his Flora Bore- 

 ali- Americana, p. 229. : " It is much to be lamented, that no collection of 

 Cacti can be made, on account of the impossibility of drying them. If I am 

 not mistaken, some species were collected by Drummond, and certainly by 

 Douglas, on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, at 44° and 45° north 

 latitude, and at a considerable height up the mountains. Probably they were 

 the same, or some nearly allied to them, which Nuttall discovered on the 

 high mountains on the Missouri, and in the district, of Wandan (also in about 

 the same latitude), viz. Mammillaria simplex, Mamm. vivipara Haw., and 

 Opuntia fragilis Nutt." Pursh mentions only one species between New 

 Jersey and Carolina, found in scanty forests of fir, and in sandy fields. He 

 calls it Cactus Opuntia, and says that their edible fruit is known by the name 

 of the Prickly Pear. We have many examples of the continued extent of 

 this family, through all the countries on the Mexican coast, the Antilles, and 

 as far as California; and we are also aware that an extraordinary number of 

 species exists on the enormous South American continent, extending to the 

 southern boundary of Chile. 



It is not exactly ascertained at what southern point these plants cease to 

 grow, but it is well known that several species are found on the continent 

 south of Conception. Meyen says that the Cactus chilensis is found at a 

 height of from 4,500 ft. to 5,000 ft. above the level of the sea, in the vicinity of 

 St. Jago, in Chile, between 33° and 34° south latitude, on the coast of 

 San Anzico ; and, according to Poppig's observations, the opuntias and melo- 

 cacti are found on the Cambre, near St. Rosa, nearly under the level of the 

 sea, at 33° south latitude ; and they grow also at the height of at least 9000 ft. 

 above the level of the sea*, which seems to indicate that they have a very 

 extensive southern range. The most southern point where they have been 

 found is nearly at 45° south latitude in the Archipelago de los Chinos y 

 Huayticas, where, according to Pdppig, there are large plains covered with the 

 Cactus coquimbana Mulina. If we, therefore, calculate from the southern 

 limit of 45°, to the northern point of 49°, there will be found an extent of 



* Our night encampment was on the previous evening, at a height of 7500 ft. 

 The next morning, after a very steep ascent, Poppig came to a spot of which 

 he says : " The large pillars of the different kinds of Cereus disappear for ever ; 

 but the smaller members of this genus are found in abundance in this frosty 

 region. The Opuntia, with its wedge-shaped joints, and the generally woolly 

 Cacti, form large groups between the sharp-cornered stones, which one cannot 

 pass by without much trouble." (Poppig's Travels, vol. i. p. 212.) 



