HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 215 
forests, is struck with astonisliment and admiration, when, quitting these, 
he finds himself suddenly in the immense plains of Brazil, Peru, &c., in the 
rocky regions of Mexico, placed before these vast cones, the enormous 
spheres, with sides bristling with long sharp spines, which some of the 
Echinocacti present, or these immense bushes or superb candelebras, 
which are formed by the Cerei and the Opuntias, or when he stumbles 
against vast tufts of Mammillarias : Cacti, all ornamented with an immense 
profusion of flowers mostly splendid, and with fruits often sweet and 
refreshing. 
In these tropical forests also, where Heaven has showered all the 
splendors, all the magnificent things of creation, we can admire, grouped 
and hanging, the forks of aged trees, mixed with showy orchids, the sin- 
gular Epiphylla with flat and jointed stalks, the elegant Phyllocacti with 
flat-winged stalks, all with splendid flowers, as well as the Hariotas with 
slender threadshaped stems, and little coquettishly spreading flowers. The 
family of Cacti, in fine, present united a singularity of form, an eccentric 
growth, and a richness of flowers, which we can scarcely find equalled in 
all the rest of the vegetable kingdom. 
America is the exclusive country of the Cacti. They are met with on 
this continent, from the thirty-fifth degree of north latitude to the forty- 
fifth of south latitude, and even beyond that. They grow on the shore, 
in the plains, on the mountains, where some of them approach the regions 
of eternal snow. 
Notwithstanding the strangeness and curious appearance of the Cacti, 
and the beauty and showiness of their flowers, or even the enormous size 
to which some of them attain, this beautiful group has neverthless been 
long unknown to botanists, yet none merited more the attention or the care 
of amateurs. One of the species, however, one of the most insignificant, 
in an ornamental point of view, was introduced into Europe about the time 
of the discovery of the new continent, and was from that time rapidly 
naturalized in all the south of Europe and the north of Africa, where the 
Spaniards transported it, in company with the Agave Americana. Now, 
in this last country, immense tracts of land and entire hills are covered 
with these two plants. 
It is worthy of remark, that the introduction of the Opuntia fieus-indica 
was unique, and that the fierce conquerors of Mexico and of Peru have 
chosen this species, to the exclusion of so many others much more remark- 
able for the beauty of their shape and their flowers. In importing this 
Opuntia and this Agave, was it not that they wished to import at the same 
