HORTICULTURAL JOURJs^AL. 231 
THE CACTUS FAMILY. 
(Continued from p. 217.) 
A true fault, and a serious one, to accuse M. PfeiiFer of, is tlie brevity 
of the descriptions ^vhich he horro'wed, ^Yord for word, from authors, and 
which he should have remodelled, whenever he recognized a plant, so as to 
make them on a par with the science. It is in fact impossible, by means of 
the short descriptions which accompany each plant in his book, for an ama- 
teur to determine the plants which he possesses, especially now, when the 
number of Cacteae known at the time when M. Pfeiffer wrote has almost 
doubled. Too short and too little detailed descriptions, and this reproach 
only bears upon M. Pfeiffer, of plants which in reality resemble each other 
so much at the first view, that commonly unpractised eyes confound them, 
have still another grave inconvenience, and one which it is hardly necessary 
to mention, which is, that an author reading attentively the description of 
another to determine a plant which he has under his eyes, and not being 
able to recognize it, by reason of the inexactness of his predecessor, thinks 
it, too often, undescribed, and makes a new species, although it may be the 
same plant which his predecessor had in view. Well, this fact has been 
repeated many times at Brussels, at Berlin, at Munich, at Paris, and at 
other places. Hence it is that we have three or four names for a plant, 
and a synonomy complicated and almost inextricable, inasmuch as that there 
are few botanists or instructed amateurs who will or can devote to this 
Penelopean work (so to call it) a sufficient time, and to undergo the expenses 
of numerous journeys, and of long and wearisome consultations. For is it 
not necessary in fact, to perfect this work, to go to consult the typical 
plants described by authors, at Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Erfurth, Brussels, 
Paris, London, &c. ? 
Another fact much to be regretted, and which, more than any other 
cause, has confused synonomy, is the numerous descriptions made by Ger- 
man authors, from plants recently arrived from America, but which were 
dead or dried up, or from young plants grown from seeds in their green- 
houses, which were Aveak, anomalous, and which generally had nothing in 
common with the original plants procured from the mother country. 
These latter, in their turn described by other writers, who could not 
recognize them in the characteristic phrases of their successors, have pub- 
