236 



The Rainbow Cactus. 



foreigner, then, having an equal chance with the American natural- 

 ist. ' This endowment is not for the benefit of any one department 

 of science, but it is the intention to give the preference to those 

 investigations which cannot otherwise be provided for, which have 

 for their object the advancement of human knowledge or the benefit 

 of mankind in general, rather than to researches directed to the 

 solution of questions of merely local importance.' About 30 grants 

 for specific purposes have been made from this fund to investigators 

 in various parts of the United States, in England, Scotland, Ger- 

 many, Italy and Canada. The investigations were in meteorology, 

 chemistry, physics, medicine, psychology, paleontology, physiology, 

 entomology, zoology', astronomy, history and cooking. Only one 

 of these grants is for investigations by our own sex, and that one is 

 $300.00 for experiments on cooking. Rosa Smith Eigemnann. 



THE RAINBOW CACTUS. 



(From the Rural Californiau, xiv, 2(51.) 



The Echinocereus candicans of American catalogues is certainly 

 one of the most beautiful of the man}' varieties of cacti now known 

 in cultivation. In beauty of spines and brilliancy of flowers it can 



scarcely be surpassed or even 

 equalled by any known species. 

 The plant is three or four inches 

 in diameter and from a few 

 inches to probably more than a 

 foot in height. Plants in my 

 possession are five inches high 

 and about four inches in diam- 

 eter. The plant is closely envel- 

 oped by a network of stiff spines 

 borne on the twenty or more 

 narrow ribs of the plant, in clus- 

 ters of twenty or more. The 

 spines range in color from an 

 ivory whiteness to deep crimson, 

 the colors alternating in rings 

 around the plant and thus giv- 

 ing origin to its popular name 

 of the rainbow cactus. 

 It blooms profusely — a plant six inches in height often bearing a 

 dozen flowers, and each flower measuring from three to five inches 



RAINBOW CACTUS. 



