CEEEUS. 43 



. lias two branches, each 4 feet high, three others 6 feet high, and a small one 

 18 inches in height. One straight unbranched stem, the first top taken off, is 

 l:i feet high. The next cutting developed into a fine plant, now in Mr. 

 Peacock's collection, about 14 feet high, with several branches, and which 

 last year had as many as thirty-six flowers. The fourth plant is 8 feet high, 

 v,-ith two branches ; the fifth, which has been topped, has two branches 11 feet 

 liigh, two 6i feet high, and one 18 inches in height. It will thus be seen that 

 one plant has produced a total length of stem, counting all the branches, 

 of 80 or 90 feet, of an average diameter of 5 inches, in about thirty years, 

 "The Cromwell House collection includes many rare and beautiful Cacta- 

 ceous plants ; but this group of Cereus is undoubtedly the most remarkable 

 ■of all. 



Plants of moderate age generally have the stem from 3 to 6 inches in 

 diameter with narrow ridges 1 to IJ inch deep and 2 inches apart, very 

 distinctly marked in the young growth, but on older stems the ridges are 

 nearly lost. The clusters are 1 inch apart, containing six to eight 

 brownish spines half to 1 inch long on a small brown tuft of wool-like sub- 

 stance, which is sometimes scarcely perceptible. The stem is usually deep 

 green, but the young growth occasionally assumes a glaucous blue colour 

 almost as strongly marked as in C. Jamacaru. The flowers are white or 

 ■sometimes tinged with red, 4 to 6 inches in diameter, and are borne freely 

 during the summer months on the upper portion of the stem or branches. 



C. PERirviANUS MOKSTBOsns. — This is a peculiar variety of the fasciated 

 or contorted type so frequent in these plants. The substance of the stem is 

 ■most strangely twisted and irregular in form, grotesque in the extreme, and 

 not bearing the slightest resemblance to the species except in the flowers. 

 Specimens 4 or 5 feet high are sometimes seen in cultivation, but one of the 

 largest is in the possession of Dr. Paterson, Fernfield, Bridge of Allan, 

 Stirlingshire, which is very old, and shows the peculiar character of this 

 strange variety remarkably well. A smaller form of this variety named 

 minor is also grown, and rarely exceeds G or 8 inches in height, peculiarly 

 contorted, but not so fasciated as the other. 



Cekeus gigakteus, Engdmann. — No stranger phase of vegetation can 

 lie conceived than that formed by the Giant Cereus in the districts of Mexico 

 •where it abounds, for these enormous columns of vegetable matter have been 

 recorded as attaining the height of 60 feet, and specimens 40 to 50 feet high 

 are of frequent occurrence. In particular localities, too, they are exceed- 

 ingly numerous and near together, views of the scenery in such districts 

 ■having a most peculiar appearance. Travellers have without exception 

 commented in wondering terms upon these singular occupants of rocky or 

 sterile soil ; but one of the best descriptions is that by Mbllhausen in his 

 '■ Diary of a Journey from the Mississippi to the Coasts of the Pacific," in 

 which he remarks : " The absence of every other vegetation enabled us to 

 distinguish these Cacti columns from a great distance, as they stood 

 symmetrically arranged on the heights and declivities of the mountains. 



