By Mr. D. Beaton. 



407 



at this improper time, merely because it is customary to do so with 

 other plants. 



If you let a young soft seedling Cactus get so dry that it begins 

 to shrivel, and then cut off the point of the tap root and place it 

 in a coloured liquid, it will soon imbibe the liquid ; and if you 

 afterwards cut it lengthways through the centre you will see the 

 beautiful system by which it receives its nourishment, forcibly dis- 

 played by the coloured veins or vessels in the fleshy pulp ; some 

 of these vessels are so small that you could hardly touch them 

 with the point of a needle, yet if one of them should be broken or 

 otherwise deranged, it might soon lead to the destruction of the 

 whole plant. Many who admire the outward forms of these sin- 

 gular plants, know little of the extreme delicacy of their internal 

 structure, and handle them as if their veins were formed of 

 iron. Even after a collector has been instructed not to twist or 

 pull any of these plants out of the earth by mere force, for fear 

 of injuring their internal structure, he will often, though he may 

 dig up the plants with the greatest care, take hold of the long 

 wiry roots to carry away the plants by them ; and if the specimen 

 should be at all heavy, its whole weight is thus suspended on a 

 series of the most delicate vessels, which can scarcely escape being 

 torn asunder, and if they are, the dissolution of the plant will 

 inevitably follow, though it may appear to live for some time 

 after. 



There is a direct communication from the roots up through the 

 centre of all Cacti by means of a series of perpendicular woody 

 fibres, which are soft in young plants and at all times in the very 

 succulent kinds, but which generally in mature plants assume a 

 firm woody character, and in many species of Cereus and Opuntia 

 become quite ligneous, with a pulpy centre analogous to the pith 

 of trees and shrubs. These woody fibres may be traced up to the 

 last two years' wood where they merge into the general succulency 



