CACTACEOUS PLAHTS. 



of the order. Botanically it is now obsolete, and the species are arranged 

 under other genera, sncli as Cereus, Echinocactus, Opuntia, &o. The- 

 title "Cactus," or " Cactos," was applied by Tbeophrastus to some kind 

 of spiny plant peculiar to Sicily, which, there appears good reason for 

 supposing, was really Cynara Scolymus, the Artichoke, and therefore it 

 was eiToneously adopted for a class of plants widely separated from the 

 CompositEe. Dioscorides, Athenteus, and Pliny mention this Cactus, but 

 apparently referring to the same plant. A plant is also mentioned by 

 Pliny under the name of Opuntia, which has been by some supposed tO' 

 be Opuntia vulgaris. The passage runs thus : — " About the city of 

 Opus there is an herbe called Opuntia which men delight to eat ; this 

 admirable gift the leafe hath, that if it be laid on the gi'ound it will take 

 root and there is no other way to plant the herbe and maintain its kind." 

 — (HonancPs Pliny'). There is, howcTer, much uncertainty about this, 

 although the Opuntia has been long naturalised in Europe. Coming to- 

 our own country the earliest record of any cultivated members of the 

 family occurs in Gerarde's "Catalogue of Plants" (1596), in which he 

 mentions the Ficus indica (Opuntia vulgaris) said to have been brought 

 from Zante by his servant, WiUiam Marshall. In his " Historie of 

 Plantes " (1633) a good figure is given of it, also in Parkinson's " Garden 

 of Pleasant Flowers" (1629) and "Theater of Plantes" (1640), the 

 latter mentioning two forms, major and miuor, the Greater and Lesser 

 "Indian Figge Trees." One of those was included in the collection at 

 the Oxford Botanic Garden, for in tlie catalogue dated 1658 is mentioned 

 the Ficus indica spinosa minor of Parkinson. In the succeeding fifty 

 years several species were introduced, chiefly through the Earl of Port- 

 land, and to the Eoyal Gardens, Hampton Court; so that in 1716, when 

 Richard Bradley published his interesting little work on succulent plants, 

 he was able to describe and illustrate five forms, chiefly of Cereus and 

 Opuntia. In the same author's " Philosophical Account of the Works of 

 Nature " (1739) good figures are also given of a Cereus, Melocactus, and- 

 Opuntia, with some description and reference to his previous work.. 

 During the eighteenth century Mr. Phillip Miller of the Chelsea Gardens- 

 brought several Cactese iuto notice, at least eight being credited to him 

 and described in his " Gardeners' Dictionary " in addition to those 

 already known. By the end of this century, as we find from Wildenow's 

 edition of Linnseus' "Species Plantarum" (1796), twenty-nine species 

 were in ciiltivation or known to botanists, and all were arranged under the 

 head "Cactus," the specific names being mostly the same as those adopted 

 now. Martyn's edition of Miller's " Gardeners' Dictionary " (1807)- 

 enumerates twenty species as follows : Cactus mammUlaris, Melocactus,, 

 Pitajaya, heptagonus, tetragonus, hexagonus, pentagonus, repandus. 



