THE CACTUS TRIRE. 45 



columns ; creeping Cereitses, with their long pendent 

 branches, which might be taken for the tails of some 

 animal, if it were not for the gay, rose-coloured flowers 

 they push out from time to time ; and all the strange 

 races of Melon-thistles (Melocacti), Porcupine-thistles 

 (Echinocacti), and Hedge-hog thistles (Mammillarias), 

 whose names sufficiently attest their extraordinary 

 appearance — I say, you will form a clear general idea 

 of this curious Cactus tribe, when you have collected 

 in your mind all the remarkable plants that have now- 

 been named ; and I cannot anticipate any difficulty in 

 your doing so, because they are among the commonest 

 plants that inhabit greenhouses. All these species 

 are destitute of true leaves, except when they are first 

 beginning to grow. Just at that time they do indeed 

 produce little succulent bodies, which we know to be 

 rudiments of leaves ; but such parts drop off" soon 

 after they ^re born, and the only representatives thev 

 leave behind are the stiff, hooked spines, with which so 

 many species are covered. The parts which are mis- 

 taken for leaves in the Indian fig, or some of the more 

 common species of Cereus, are only the flattened joints 

 of the stem. 



It would be difficult to find any race of plants, 

 where a more ob\dous connection exists between the 

 manner in which they are constructed and the situa- 

 tions it is their destiny to live in. The greater 

 number grow in hot, dry, rocky places, where thev 

 are exposed for many months in the year to the 

 fiercest beams of a tropical sun, mthout a possibilitv 

 of obtaining from the parched and hardened soil. 



