(7) 



islands of the Pacific, it was introduced into the West Indies 

 in the latter part of the eighteenth century. 



Several interesting tall vines climb on the pillars of this 

 house, among them the night-blooming jessamine (Cestrum 

 Parqui) of tropical America, which opens its flowers after 

 dark and exhales a delicious perfume, the flowers remaining 

 open during part of the morning; Henderson's Allamanda, 

 of Brazil, with its showy large yellow flowers, climbs to the 

 roof. 



House No. 5. The plants in this house are from desert 

 regions. Especial attention is called to their fleshy stems or 

 leaves which serve as storage organs for a water supply to 

 carry them over periods of drought. On the right hand 

 bench, as one enters from No. 4, are mainly plants from 

 southern Africa: the carrion flowers (Stapelia) , relatives of 

 our common milkweed of the roadsides; Aloe, Gasteria, 

 Haworthia, and other South African representatives of the 

 lily family. 



The central bench is entirely devoted to the cactus family, 

 which, with few exceptions, is American. Nearly all these 

 plants are devoid of leaves, these organs, when present, being 

 mostly small and inconspicuous; in the genus Opuntia they are 

 usually present on the young growths as awl-shaped bodies, 

 while in some few species they are much larger and remain 

 for some time; in the genus Pereskia, specimens of which 

 will be found in house No. 7, the leaves are large and well 

 developed. The stems of the cacti are fleshy and assume a 

 great number of forms ; in Opuntia the stem is composed of 

 joints, either cylindric or broad and flattened. In Cereus 

 the stems are angled; in Carnegiea they are thick massive 

 columns with many longitudinal ribs; in Echinocactus the 

 plant-bodies are but little elongated, or almost globular, while 

 in other genera the plant-body is covered with rows of spirally 

 arranged projections. The flowers of many cacti are ex- 

 quisite in form and color; they are borne on various parts of 

 the plant-body, in the turk's-head cactus on a curiously modi- 

 fied portion of the top. A plant of economic interest here is 



