The Cactus, 



Lindley remarks that the Cactuses which, from the profusion 

 of large richly colored flowers that some species are loaded with, 

 have given to our conservatories an air of magnificence which 

 was quite unknown till of late years, constitute the small group 

 of Cactaceae. The species are in all cases succulent, and with 

 the single exception of the Pereskias, destitute of leaves, in 

 whose room the stem is either green and leaf-like or at least 

 covered over with a green integument, which has the struc- 

 ture of the pulpy part of a leaf, and like it executes the office of 

 respiration. Belonging to this highly curious natural order is 

 the Indian Fig — Cactus Opuntia, which is found in every 

 part of the United States, south of New York, and is quite com- 

 mon along the banks of the Hudson. The whole plant consists 

 of roundish fig-shaped joints which grow profusely out of each 

 other, covered at an early stage with small cylindric scattered 

 leaves, and at length clothed with spines and well guarded by 

 bristles. From these joints protrude the large pale yellow flowers 

 made up of numerous petals, or blossoms, arranged in several 

 series. Torch-thistles, a species of Cereus, whose angular trunks 

 rise erect and singly into the air like fantastic vegetable columns, 

 are another kind ; as also the creeping Cereuses, with their long 

 pendant branches which might be taken for the tails of some ani- 

 mals, if it were not for the gay rose-colored flowers they push out 

 from time to time ; and all the strange races of melon thistles, por- 

 cupine thistles, and hedge-hog thistles, whose names sufficiently 

 attest their extraordinary appearance. From these a good idea 

 can be formed of the Cactus tribe. All these species are desti- 

 tute of true leaves, except when they are at first beginning to 

 grow. Just at that time they do indeed produce little succu- 

 lent bodies which we know to be rudiments of leaves; but such 

 parts drop off' soon after they are born, and the only representa- 

 tives they leave behind are the stiff, hooked spines with which 

 so many species are covered. The parts which are mistaken for 

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