CHAPTER V 
SUCCULENT PLANTS (CACTUSES, ETC.) 
Where 
Succulent 
Plants Grow. 
Perhaps the most characteristic of all the types of vegetation on 
the globe is that which belongs to its dry, hot areas. This vegetation 
is notable for the grotesque forms it assumes, its fleshi- 
ness and succulency, the absence of foliage in the ordinary 
sense of the word, the thick epidermis, and the excessive 
armature of spines and prickles. Such plants are capable 
of going without moisture for long periods, having the faculty of storing 
up large quantities of water and parting with it slowly. The two most 
important of these areas, so far as cultivated plants are concerned, 
are the dry belt of North America, including parts of Mexico, Texas, 
Arizona, etc., and the great dry region of South Africa. The first 
of these gives us the bulk of the cactuses and Agaves ; the second 
is the home of the Aloes, Euphorbias, Mesembryanthemums, and 
Stapelias. Areas of great importance also, but furnishing a smaller 
number of cultivated plants, are the North African region, including 
parts of Arabia, Abyssinia, Socotra ; the South American region, 
comprising parts of Chile, the Argentine Republic, etc. ; and a great 
portion of Australia. 
The Cactus House (No. 5) at Kew is intended to present an epitome 
of the flora of all these regions. The north end of the house is devoted 
to plants requiring great heat, the south to those from cooler countries. 
The building itself, which is 200 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 20 feet 
high, was first erected in 1855, but was pulled down and rebuilt in 
1904, and at the same time made lighter and generally improved. 
It now contains the most extensive collection of xerop’nilous plants 
in Europe. 
The cultivation of this class of plants has of late years become 
more widespread, especially on the Continent, where the intenser light 
and heat of the summer favours them more than do the cloudier skies 
of the North. Their chief requirement is, indeed, abundant sunlight. 
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