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THE ORCHID CACTUS—ITS HISTORY 
Many centuries ago, in some remote geologi- 
cal age, when the world was new, when the 
glacial era had passed and while the Americas 
were still a steaming jungle, somewhere from 
out of the mists and chaos of this antiquity, 
somewhere among the newly forming wonders 
of nature, there was created a new type of plant 
life which was to have a most unique history. 
This was the first true Cactus. 
It is thought that perhaps this first cactus 
originated in South America, or even on the 
Lost Island of Atlantis. To the best of present 
day knowledge, this first cactus had leaves simi- 
liar to those of the citrus trees of to-day, flowers 
somewhat like a wild rose in form but with an 
orange-blossom fragrance, and they bore the 
spine-like armor of the cacti as we now know 
them. 
Due to the changing factors of climate and 
even of soil, Mother Nature fought a terrific 
battle for survival of her favorites. Her own 
stubborn desire to protect and progeneate her 
own, forced this newly born genus of plants to 
migrate over an ever-widening area and as this 
original cactus invaded new regions, it altered 
its habits, its character and even its forms, for 
in that remote past, the only plants able to exist 
were those which could adapt themselves to this 
new life. 
Slowly from out of these primeval forests 
there arose a complete series of plant genera, 
unrelated to the surrounding vegetation. From 
the subdivision of these genera, came the crea- 
tion of entirely new forms, until down through 
the ages, were developed the many species of 
cacti that are now known. 
The jungles slowly receded and sometimes 
left in their place only vast arid regions. These 
plants, although born of the jungle, had a pe- 
culiar ability to retain their own moisture for 
long periods of time. Eventually these lonely 
denizens of the barren expanse became the liv- 
ing symbols of our great American Deserts. 
These cacti were the first to become well 
known to man. Because of the publicity given 
them, it was soon assumed that all cacti were 
desert plants, however, in an actual survey of 
all known cacti, it is probable that far less than 
half are actual desert dwellers. The majority 
would be found in the fields, the forests and 
the mountains. 
Early European botanists, exploring the 
luxuriant jungles of the New World, in search 
of unusual botanical specimens, found wonder- 
ous plants growing high in the jungle trees. 
These plants were strange indeed. They had 
the habits of the orchid. They hung pendant 
from high in the trees. Their flowers seemed 
to be borne directly from the ends of the 
“leaves.” These plants produced huge white 
flowers, which bloomed mostly at night and 
which gave forth a lily-like fragrance. 
Surprisingly, these plants proved to be genu- 
ine members of the cactus family. Thus man 
had completed the circle backwards and had 
found in its seemingly primeval form, the most 
magnificent flowering cacti in the world. Many 
other types of cacti were later found in the 
jungles but only a few found their way to 
Europe and apparently those flat “leaved,” 
flower-bearing cacti held the most interest for 
the botanist. In America we remained bliss- 
fully unaware of the beauty we were missing. 
In 1812, the great botanist Haworth described 
this plant genus as Epsphyllum and gave a rather 
complete description of its first species as Epz- 
phyllum phyllanthus, However, not much atten- 
tion was paid to this and in 1831, the botanist 
Link described the genus as Phyllocactus, which 
mame was generally accepted throughout the 
Old World. 
Only a few of the wild species had been 
brought to the United States. These happened 
to be mostly night-blooming and were soon 
known as “Night Blooming Cereus’’ although 
they were actually far from being a true Cerews. 
In the meantime, European botanists were 
intrigued by the size and fragrance of these new 
flowers. All they lacked was color and soon it 
was found that these plants could be cross- 
pollinated with some of the brighter hued cacti 
and thus, through hybridization, they intro- 
duced a new world of color. 
In America, we were becoming more botani- 
cally minded. We became interested in these 
European hybrids, but only to the extent of 
importing them and thus enjoying their work. 
We knew little about these plants in those days. 
Botanical works, written in foreign languages, 
were both unavailable and not understandable to 
most people. Botanical terms were difficult to 
translate. Cuttings or plants, imported from 
Europe, arrived here in bad shape. No one 
seemed to know just how to grow them and 
much experimentation was necessary. Most of 
the early collectors were forced to graft their 
plants on sturdy cacti in order to make them 
live, for, as yet, we had not realized that these 
were true jungle plants, 
