. RhiPsalis Cassytha.— I n the succulent- 
1 house at Kew this singular, and moreover rather pretty, 
I plant is now bearing a crop of its pretty Mistleto-like 
ferries. It has fleshy-jointed, cylindrical, leafless 
l^ranches and white flowers. Although it succeeds 
I perfectly under cultivation, grown just like other 
[succulents in any sandy, well-drained loam, yet in the ' 
West Indies it is found as an epiphyte suspended from 
the branches of trees. In that charmingly written and 
, wonderfully interesting book of travel, Kingsley’s 
At Last y the author thus alludes to the species: — “And 
last, but not least, that strange and lovely parasite, 
the Rhipsalis Cassytha, which you mistake at first for 
a plume of green sea-weed, or a tress of mermaid’s 
hair, which has got up there by mischance ; and then 
for some delicate kind of pendent Mistleto ; till you 
are told, to your astonishment, that it is an abnormal * 
form of Cactus— a family which it resembles, save in 
its tiny flowers and fruit, no more than it resembles 
the Ceiba tree on which it grows, and told, too, that, 
strangely enough, it has been discovered in Angola— 
r the only species of the Cactus tribe in the Old 
i World.” In the English edition of Li Maout and 
» Decaisne, the editor (Sir J. D. Hooker) mentions the i 
plM:t that a Rhipsalis has been discovered in Ceylon. 
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