THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
ring. The reader may, therefore, judge what a curious 
figure the old gentleman plant cuts in his native 
woods, with his body all covered with long, white hair, 
surmounted by a brown muff, and above all a wreath of 
crimson flowers. 
Most flowering plants in this country ‘have elegant 
stalks, to which the flower parts are generally neatly 
and fittingly joined. We never think of smiling mirth¬ 
fully at any of these objects, but, on the contrary, are 
disposed to regard them with interested and serious 
attention. How different are these Cacti, with their 
incomprehensible lumpy, angular stems, masses of 
green vegetable matter decorated quaintly along the 
edges with prickles, while here and there a flower sticks 
out, looking as oddly placed as would a man’s head if it 
projected from his side or were stuck upon his knee. 
To the dark crimson flowers which ornament the stem, 
succeeds the fruit, a thing which one would at first sup¬ 
pose to be an egg, till tasting it he would imagine it a 
gooseberry. In their native country, the Cactus specio- 
issimus, which is so peculiarly liable to this description, 
grows to a height of forty feet or so, without a single 
branch or a single leaf, and it is generally upon the tops 
of mountains that they are found. Peeping, a German 
botanical traveler in Brazil, says, that in that country 
a hilltop bristling with the Cactus speciosissimus re¬ 
sembles nothing so much as a hog’s back. 
Then we have the Creeping Cereus ( cereus flagellifor- 
mis). which looks like a number of cats’ tails tied to¬ 
gether and hung over a flower pot, with a few crimson 
flowers stuck into them irregularly. The spines with 
which these hanging stems are completely covered are 
what gives them the cats’ tail appearance; they have no 
leaves, but the tails are sometimes forked. 
The Leaf Cactus ( Epiphyllum pliyllanthoides ) is of 
totally different but equally quaint form, the stems ap¬ 
pearing to consist of a series o f leaves stuck into each 
other, and having notches in the sides frcm which 
spring the flowers. The Porcupine Cactus (Echinccac- 
tvs) has a round, bald-like stem, often with jrojtcting 
angles like an old fashioned lady’s reticule. The flowers 
of this genus appear thrown carelessly on the stem, and 
not to belong to it. 
Among foreign vegetation, the Brcusscnetia papy- 
rifera of India and Japan, from which is made an 
article called India paper, is one of the most singularly 
whimsical in its appearance. Its leaves are all different 
in form; and each one looks as though it had had a piece 
torn from it, and afterwards been sewed up to repair 
the damage. There is exactly that disarrangement of 
the fibres of the leaf, and that appearance of puckering 
at the seam, which would be seen in a piece of 
checkered cloth worn by a mendicant, which, having 
had a narrow section taken from it, had been hastily 
basted together without any regard to the joining of the 
checkers or to smoothness of surface. 
The well known Fly-trap, Dioncea museipvla strikes 
the mind with all the effect of a joke. The leaves of 
this plant are fringed with stiff bristles and fold 
together when certain hairs on their upper surface are 
touched, thus seizing insects that light on them. Seeing 
the leaf stand temptingly open a poor fly pops in for 
shelter or food; no sooner has it touched its feet than 
some sensitive fibres are affected, and the cilia at the top 
closes in upon the intruder, imprisoning him as effect¬ 
ually as if a boy had taken him and closed him in a 
box. The Monkey-flower, a plant of the germs minulus, 
so called from the appearance of the gaping corolla, is 
almost comical in its aspect. The Pitcher-plant or 
Monkey-cap of the East, although not particularly 
ludicrous has a whimsical arrangement which borders 
closely upon the human economy. To the footstalk of 
each leaf of this plant, near the base, is attached a kind 
of bag, shaped like a pitcher, of the same consistence 
and color as the leaf in the earlier state of its growth; 
but changing with age to a reddish purple. It is girt 
around with an oblique band or licop, and covered with 
a lid neatly fitted, and movable on a kind of hinge or 
strong fibre, which, passing over the handle, connects 
the vessel with the leaf. By the shrinking or contract¬ 
ing of this fibre the lid is drawn open whenever the 
weather is showery or damp. When sufficient moisture 
has fallen and the pitcher is saturated, the cover falls 
down, closing so firmly that evaporation cannot ensue. 
The water is thus gradually absorbed through the 
handle in the footstalk of the leaf, giving sustenance 
and vigor to the plant. As soon as the pitchers are 
exhausted, the lids again open to admit whatever 
moisture may fall; and when the plant has produced its 
seed, and the dry season fairly sets in, it withers, with 
all the covers of the pitchers standing open. 
There are a few plants the flowers of which bear 
curious, if not ludicrous, resemblances to other objects. 
The natural order, orchidacece, are remarkable for this 
property. The flower of the Oncidium papilo presents 
an extraordinary resemblance to a tortoise shell butter¬ 
fly, as that of the Phalaenopsis amabilis does to a white 
one. Peristeria pendula looks like a dove crouching in 
its nest, and Coryanthes Macrantha resembles a skele¬ 
ton’s head, with the vertebral of the neck finished off 
with a pair of bat-wings. The flower of the bee orchis 
is like a piece of honeycomb, and the bees delight in it. 
Then there is the Snap dragon; the corolla of which is 
cleft and turned back so as to look like a rabbit’s 
mouth, especially if pinched on the sides, when the 
animal appears as if nibbling. The -flower of the Cock’s- 
comb and the seed pod of the Mostynia proboscidea bear 
curious resemblances to the objects which have sug¬ 
gested their names. Some kinds of the Mendicago have 
also curious seed pods, some being like beehives, some 
like caterpillars, and some like hedgehogs—the last 
being itself an essentially ludicrous object. 
Clinton Montague. 
