May.~] HOT-HOUSE — OF REPOTTING, ETC. 153 
but these beauties are of momentary duration. By sunrise 
they fade, and hang down quite decayed, and never open 
again.* One of these ought to be in every collection, and, 
if trained up a naked wall, will not occupy much room, and 
grow and flower profusely. C. Mdllisoni and G Scottii are 
nearly alike, and have beautiful scarlet flowers : it has been 
gratuitously (to say the least of it) called "The Scarlet 
Night-blooming Cereus." G. sjieciossissimus has most beau- 
tiful large flowers, about six inches in diameter ; the outside 
petals are a bright scarlet, those of the inside a fine light 
purple. One flower lasts a few days, and a large plant will 
produce every year from ten to fifty flowers, and blooming 
from May to August. G. Maynardii has very large orange- 
scarlet flowers, about nine inches in diameter, blooming dur- 
ing the day. G. Fielderii is of a brilliant bluish violet 
colour, even more of the peculiarly blue tints so greatly ad- 
mired in speciossissimus. G triangiddris has the largest 
flower of the Gactese family ; the bloom is of a cream colour, 
and about one foot in diameter. In its indigenous state it 
produces a fine fruit called " Strawberry Pear," and is much 
esteemed in the West Indies as being slightly acid, and, at 
the same time, sweet, pleasant, and cooling. 
Epiphyllums are those species of the Cacteae family which 
have flat shoots, or leaves without spines; from the edges 
of those leaves the flowers are produced. They are exten- 
sively cultivated for their profusion of bloom, and are 
frequently grafted on Cereus triangularis and jPereskia, 
which greatly promotes their growth, and prevents them 
from so easily damping off by over-watering. The original 
species are E. speciosum, pink; E. phylantho\des or Hook- 
erii, white; E. aldtum, white; E. tmncdtum, scarlet; 
flowers tubular, from two to three inches in diameter. The 
plant is of a very dwarf growth, and much branched ; when 
in bloom, it is quite a picture, and rendered more beautiful 
when grafted. There are three varieties of truncdtum, dif- 
fering from it in colour, or rather shades of colour : Alten- 
steinii, rosy red; violacea, very beautiful violet and white; 
* They may be preserved if cut off when in perfection, and put in 
spirits of wine, in a glass vase, made air tight. A plant flowered 
in our collection in May, 1830, at 12 o'clock at noon — the only in- 
stance of the kind we ever heard of. 
