2 CACTACEOUS PLANTS. 



they are surrounded as it were by a degree of mystery that always adds 

 charm to Nature. 



Cactaceous plants have therefore much to recommend them to lovers 

 of the curious and the beautiful, but the majority also possess another 

 very valuable character — i.e., they are easily grown, so easily in fact that 

 the cottager who can only devote a small space to them in his window 

 may, and often does, grow many of them as successfully as the greatest 

 magnate in E urope with all the most elaborate horticultural appliances 

 ai his command. In the dry and heated atmosphere of a room which is so 

 trying to most plants they are perfectly at home, and their demands upon 

 the attention o'f their host are so slight that they may bo left for weeks, 

 nay months, without the smallest supply of water. It is not surprising 

 therefore, that many of them are favourites with dwellers in towns, 

 and many a toiler has had his heart lightened by a sight of the lovely 

 flowers produced by his window " Cactus," or has felt the pleasure of 

 exhibiting his vegetable curiosities to his friends. Amateurs, too, in 

 many other grades of life have found in the cultivation of these plants 

 the satisfaction which is derived from the constant study of the wonderful 

 phases of plant-existence ; and though it can never be expected that they 

 will rise to a popularity approaching that of the Eose, yet there is a 

 steadily increasing demand for them, and several nurserymen now 

 make a speciality of them. Considerable stimulus has no doubt been 

 given to the culture of Cactaceous plants by the efforts of J. T. Peacock, 

 Esq., Sudbury House, Hammersmith, who, with the aid of his former 

 gardener, Mr, Croucher, formed the largest private collection in this 

 country, and this together with the wonderful collection at Kew has 

 rendered the best of such plants familiar to Londoners. A large trade, 

 too, sprung up a short time ago in " miniature Cacti," and this by bring- 

 ing a number of forms within the reach of most people at moderate 

 prices has still further assisted in popularising an interesting class of 

 plants. The claims of the Cacte^ to general notice having been thus 

 briefly reviewed, a slight survey of the family may be now undertaken. 



STRUCTURE. 



The most prominent general character of the plants comnrised in 

 the natural order Cactea; is the unusually large development of cellular 

 tissue, to which circumstance they in common with some others of 

 different families owe the popular and wide designation of " succulent 

 plants." The stem is, with few exceptions, leafless, and varies in form 

 from the globular Melocaotus to the columnar Cereus, being generally 

 unbrauched, except in Ehipsalis, Opuntia, and the slender-growing 



