October 9, 1884. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
333 
“ The manner in which these Onions are cultirated is hardly ever 
divulged, and even if all the secrets were published and read, the unceas¬ 
ing care and attention requisite to produce these monsters would hardly 
he devoted to such an object. We all have our hobbies. The hobby of the 
colliers and mill-hands in the district described is growing Onions, and in 
no part of England is their cultivation carried on so successfully as here. 
Size and quality are what they have in view. ‘ They will melt in your 
mouth like marrow,’ one of the enthusiasts informed me. Their gardens (?) 
in some cases are formed in the 3 'ards, and in all cases are of the most 
limited size. The quantity, therefore, is small, many growing no more 
than a dozen, and in these twelve plants from early January until late in 
Septernber do these good folk keep watcb with unceasing care. Each 
blade is tied to prevent it breaking, and cotton wool is packed in all places 
where rain can possibly find its way, in order to prevent rotting. They 
are continually being fed with manure in liquid form, and altogether the 
growers bestow as much attention upon them as the wives do on their 
children. Without exception they are good-natured, for as a well-known 
novelist describes those fond of gardening, ‘ The heart that is still open 
to the softening influences of man’s first occupation, and takes delight in 
the pleasures of gardening, is never hardened.’ 
“ Thus ended a most interesting visit to a Lancashire Onion Show, and 
although I have attended scores of horticultural shows in various parts of 
the country, I must confess I never saw such a sight before. I am at a 
loss to understand how this vegetable can be grown to such perfection (far 
finer than those imported from Portugal) in a district where the air is 
impregnated with gases and vapours from the numerous factory chimneys, 
almost entirely destructive to vegetable life, by using a certain amount of 
care and attention.” 
CACTACEOUS PLANTS. 
{Contimted from page 313.) 
KHIPSALIS, Gaertner. 
(The Mistletoe Cactus). 
About thirty species of plants are assigned to the genus Rhipsalis as 
now constituted, the majority being natives of Tropical America, though 
one is found in South Africa and the Mauritius. They are epiphytal in 
habit, like the two preceding genera, have much-branched, slender, round, 
angular, or flat leafless stems, small flowers from a quarter of an inch to 
an inch in diameter, with oblong spreading white or yellow petals and 
greenish sepals, and a small white globular berry-like fruit resembling the 
Mistletoe. Under these characters are now included what have been 
regarded as four distinct genera—namely, the true Rhipsalis (Eurhipsalis), 
Lepismium, Hariota, and Pfeiffera, the three last being little known in 
gardens. In fact, the whole of the species are interesting chiefly for their 
structure and distinctness from other Cacte®, as they are of little horti¬ 
cultural value. 
They all need a light sandy soil, and being of drooping habit several of 
them appear best when suspended in pots or small baskets, and some of 
the slender species are pretty when grown in this manner. A warm dry 
position is required either in the stove or intermediate house, but the best 
known Mistletoe Cactus, R. Cassytha, can be grown under a glass case in 
a room, where it will produce its little white berries freely. The dwarf 
R. mesembryanthemoides and the yellow-flowered R. salicornioides can be 
grown in the same way. 
R. Cassytha, Gaertner .—This is the true Mistletoe Cactus, and as siich 
has been known for considerably over one hundred years, as it was intro¬ 
duced by Phillip Miller in 1758 from the West Indies, and some old writers 
have even mentioned the plant as a Viscum. In Miller’s “ Gardeners’ 
Dictionary ” (Martyn’s edition) it is described under the title Cactus pen- 
dulus, a name which was also adopted by several other wwiters (Swartz, 
Brown, and Alton), though a few have probably referred to the same plant 
under the name of Cactus parasiticus. The stems are cylindrical and pipe¬ 
like, producing their branches in whorls of three to six, upon the sides of 
which the small white flowers are produced, and are followed by the 
white semi-transparent berries that have gained the plant its popular 
name. These certainly bear a remarkable resemblance to Mistletoe berries 
in form, colom", and substance, and it appears to be one of those peculiar 
cases of mimicry that occur in certain families of plants, some of which 
have been so interestingly described by Mr. Leo H. Grindon in his 
“Echoes of Plant Life.” It is strange, however, that though many plants 
assume a more or less striking resemblance to the Cacteae there are com¬ 
paratively few of the latter that mimic other plants. Yet amongst the 
Rhipsalises we have four or five remarkable examples of this kind in addi¬ 
tion to the one already noted; for instance, R. salicornioides, which, as its 
name implies, is much like qur British Glasswort, Salicornia herbacea; 
R. mesembryanthemoides, which resembles some of the Figwort family; 
while several species, as R. crispata, R. pachyptera, and R. Swartziaua, 
have flattened crenated leaf-like stems exactly of the Phyllocactus form. 
On the other side Euphorbia mauritania has cylindrical pipe-like branches 
precisely similar to Rhipsalis funalis. 
R. MESEMBBYANTHEMOiDES, Decandolle .—A dwarf much-branched plant 
with trailing stems, bearing small cylindrical branches, covered with tufts 
of fine hair. The flowers are about half an inch in diameter, with five or 
six greenish white semi-transparent tapering sepals and petals, and are 
borne singly near the apex of the short branchlets. The fruit is similar to 
that of R. Cassytha, but smaller. This plant was described byHaw’orth as 
a variety of R. salicornioides, from which, however, it is quite distinct, and 
it was first flowered by W. Christy, Esq., Clapham, in 1831. 
R. (Hariota) salicornioides, Haworth. — The division or genus Hariota 
was founded by Endlicher upon this species, the chief distinguishing 
characters relied upon being the position of the flowers—namely, at the 
points of the branches, instead of being produced at the sides as in the other 
Rhipsalises, and in their colour being yellow instead of white. Though very 
distinct it is not considered sufficientlj' so to be separated as a genus, and is 
easily recognised as one of the Mistletoe Cactuses. It has slender stems 
alternately swollen and contracted like the Glasswort, as already noted. 
The flowers are orange yellow, wax-like, and shining, half an inch long, with 
twelve or more oblong sepals and petals which do not expand fully. A 
variety is grown at Kew named stricta, more upright than the species and 
almost fastigiate or bunched, while in some collections a form is growm 
named ramosior, which is rather more freely branched than the type. 
R. SARMENT.ACEA, Otto .—In 1858 Mr. W. Christy sent this very distinct 
and pretty species to Kew, which was probably its first appearance in 
England, though it had been known on the Continent for some years. It 
has slender cylindrical stems, densely covered with small black spines not 
unlike Cereus flagelliformis. The flowers are large, over an inch in diameter, 
star-like in form, with eight petals, and creamy white in colour. It is a 
native of Buenos Ayres and South Brazil. 
Many other species could be named, but the following are the most 
remarkable :—R. grandiflorus, a strong-growing form introduced to Kew by 
Bowie and Allan Cunningham in 1816, has greenish white flowers more than 
1 inch across. R. funalis has cylindrical pipe-like stems a quarter inch in 
diameter, long, and much-branched. R. paradoxa is a strange Brazilian 
plant, with long pendulous three-angled branches, jointed, the space between 
the joints being 1 to 2 inches long, and the stem is half twisted at each 
juncture, giving a most peculiar appearance to the plant. A specimen at 
Kew is trained up the roof of the succulent house, and its branches hang in a 
dense cluster 2 feet or more in length. R. penduliflora laxa is a slender 
drooping plant, very graceful, and suitable for a suspended pot. R. pentaptera 
has trailing five-angled stems nearly half inch in diameter, very distinct from 
its relatives. The principal flattened and Phyllocactus-like species are— 
R. crispata, R. rhombea, R. pachyptera, and R. Swartziana. 
Lepismium, Endlicher. — The few species arranged under this head are 
chiefly botanical curiosities, and are denoted by slender triangular or quad¬ 
rangular stems, with flowers produced from the sides of the branches in 
fascicles of five spines, the petals being erect, and not spreading as in Rhip¬ 
salis. L. myosurus [also known as Cereus tenuispinus and Cactus 
tenuis] is a Brazilian plant with small weak stems, which reach the length 
of several feet, and produce yellowish flowers 1 to inch across. A pretty 
graceful variety named Knighti has pretty reddish-tinted stems. L. commune 
[Cereus squamulosus and C. elegans] also from Brazil, has triangular jointed 
stems half to 2 inches in diameter and 1 to 2 feet long, the flowers small, 
white, tinted with purple. 
Pfeiffera, Salm-Dyck .—This was founded as a genus to honour a 
celebrated German botanist, Pfeiffer, who has written several works upon 
Cactese, and whose name is mentioned as an authority for the titles of many 
