CEREUS GRANDIFLORUS MAYNARDI. 
(Lady Maynard's Great-flowering Cereus.) 
Class. Order. 
ICOSANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
CACTACEiE. 
Generic Character.— Sepals numerous, imbricated, 
adnate at the base of the ovary, joined in the form of a 
long tube ; exterior sepals short, interior long and 
coloured. Stamens numerous, joined to the sepals 
within the tube. Filaments long, filiform. Style fili- 
form, multifid at the extremity. Fruit a succulent, 
one-celled, many- seeded berry, covered with areoli or 
tubercles of spines. Succulent shrubs, with angular 
stems, and showy, but fugitive, sessile flowers. 
Specific Character. — Stems creeping and extending 
to a great length, branched, cylindrical, with from five 
to seven angles, the angles bearing numerous small 
tufts of a woolly substance, intermixed with six to 
eight short setae. Copious radicles are thrown out from 
various parts of the stem, even when the latter does 
not come in contact with the soil. There is no trace 
of leaves of any kind. The flowers are lateral. The 
bud is at first globose, acute, then clavate, sessile, 
covered with imbricated scales, bearing long seta;. 
When fully expanded, the flower is a span across ; the 
tube of the calyx long, green, the limb cup-shaped ; the 
former is composed of the united imbricated scales 
above mentioned, the latter is formed of the long, 
spreading, tawny-orange, upper segments of the calyx, 
forming a sort of ray, and of an inner series of calyx- 
segments or petals, which are oblong, broader upwards, 
nearly erect, and of a pure white colour. Stamens 
numerous, long, at length inclined to one side. Fila- 
ments white. Anthers linear-oblong, yellow. Style 
as long as the stamens. Stigma of many rays.— Sir W. 
Hooker. 
Mavnardi.— Stems creeping, angular. Flowers 
when expanded, equal in size to those of C. grandiflorus. 
Tube of calyx shorter than that of the species, green, 
tinged with dull red. Outer segments of the limb 
narrow, inner segments somewhat broader. Colour 
a uniform deep orange-red, without any violet hue. 
The whole of the species of Cereus are highly prized, not on account of their 
form of growth, for the plants merely consist of a few leafless, angular, fleshy 
stems, having a smooth shining epiderm, with a very small number of evaporating 
pores, and covered with tufts of sharp-pointed spines, which readily penetrate the 
skin. Their beauty consists in the flowers, which are large and showy, of colours 
varying from the most brilliant crimson, as in C. speciosissimus, to red, as in the 
subject of the present plate ; and to yellow and white, as in the C. grandiflorus, or 
Night-blowing Cereus, as it is usually called. The flowers of all are very fugitive, 
but by a constant successive opening, the blooming season is prolonged, and the 
plants are thus rendered conspicuous objects. 
For brilliancy of colour nothing can surpass the splendid crimson and cserulean 
blue of the flowers of C. speciosissimus ; but those of the C. grandiflorus possess a 
delicacy and splendour which is not easily equalled. The flowers usually begin to 
unfold themselves about six or seven o'clock in the evening, and by ten o'clock at 
night their beauties are displayed, and a most delicious fragrance emitted ; towards 
