Cactus

“ Donald and I, with our guide, now reached the land of the giant cacti. We all at home here in Britain know something of the beauty of the common prickly cactus that grows in window-gardens or in hot-houses, and surprises us with the crimson glory of its flowers, which grow from 162 such odd parts of the plant; but here we were in the land of the cacti. Dugald knew it well, and used to tell us all about them; so tall, so stately, so strange and weird, that we felt as if in another planet. ”

“ Without its pretty bright-coloured flowers, this Cactus has the charm of novelty in the form and habit of its stems, and as it is easily cultivated in a window through which the sun shines during most of the day, it is just the plant to grow for the double purpose of a screen and a curiosity. If planted in baskets, it should be potted in a porous loamy soil, and kept moist in the summer and perfectly dry in winter. ”

“ On each step was an immense vase of Japanese porcelain, white, red, and gold, each one containing a large purple flowering cactus, and, as the stems of these plants are always rough and straggling, the charming little Smyrna convolvulus with its orange-coloured bells hid in a yellow and green tracery the barrenness of the cactus plants. ”

“ The cactus, often four feet high, was covered with rich red blossoms, and made spots of gorgeous color in the prairie grass. I had not then seen the enormous cacti of old Mexico, and four feet of that plant seemed immense, as at home we labored to get one to grow six inches. The wild-flowers were charming in color, variety and luxuriance. The air, even then beginning to taste of the sea, blew softly about us. Stillman no longer blackened his soul with prophecies about the streams on which we nightly pitched our tents. ”

“ Then, to repel the attacks of herbivores, who would gladly get at the juicy morsel if they could, the foliage has been turned into sharp defensive spines and prickles. The cactus is tenacious of life to a wonderful degree; and for reproduction it trusts not merely to its brilliant flowers, fertilised for the most part by desert moths or butterflies, and to its juicy fruit, of which the common prickly pear is a familiar instance, but it has the special property of springing afresh from any stray bit or fragment of the stem that happens to fall upon the dry ground anywhere. ”

“ When this cactus meets with a log or stone the stem with its upraised tip gradually grows over this hindrance, up one side and down the other, and by the dying back of the rear end, in time passes over the obstruction. The stems, varying from three to nine feet in length and nearly as large as a man’s arm, are very spiny, with fifteen to twenty radial and central thorns of a dark brownish hue and dull tan, turning to grayish white with age, the tips translucent yellow. The flowers are bright yellow, the fruit delicious and relished by Indians and Mexicans both as a salad and as a preserve. ”

“ In the cactus the thick stem is green and does the work of food building; naturally it cannot do so much for the plant as many big leaves could, but it does enough to allow it to live and grow slowly and surely for many years, though it cannot grow in each year nearly at the same rate as can the sunflower. If you cut through the stem of a cactus you will find that its skin is very thick and tough, and this thick coat protects the plant against the [101] fierceness of the sun far more completely than the thin skin of a sunflower does. ”

“ Mark the peculiar characters of the typical cactus: The compact mass of the vegetative body, devoid of leaves or leaf-like appendages, exposes the least possible evaporating surface to the sun; the thick skin, bearing only a few scattered stomata, breathing pores, wraps an almost impermeable covering round the internal moisture; the long, wiry, fibrous roots run hither and thither through the sand and into the finest crevices of rocks; and further, the bristling, spiny armor shields the plant from men and beasts. ”

“ I received yesterday a present from some agreeable young girls of a gigantic cactus, just in bloom, one of that species which merely flowers once in thirty years. No one can imagine a more glorious creation of sunshine:—the sun has wished to reflect himself in this flower. ”

“ It is easy to imagine the gorgeousness of a group of these plants when seen enveloping a large tree-trunk, clothing it, as it were, with balls of brilliant or pure white flowers. We are told by travellers of the splendours of a Cactus haunt during the flowering season, and those who have seen a well-managed pot specimen of Phyllocactus when covered with large, dazzling flowers, can form some idea of what wild plants are like when seen by hundreds together, and surrounded by the green foliage and festooning climbers which associate with them in the forests where they abound. ”

“ Then we retraced our steps of the morning, lingering among the pleasant groves of cottonwood, oak, and aspen; pausing to admire the cactus display of gorgeous yellow, with petals widespread, yet so wedded to their wildness that they resented the touch of a human hand, resisting their ravisher with needle-like barbs, and then sullenly drawing together their satin petals and refusing to open them more; past [Pg 75] great thickets of wild roses, higher than our heads and fragrant as the morning ”

“ The organ cactus, a kind of green New-England fence-paling continued upwards to a height of twenty or thirty feet, becomes more and more common, making almost the only division between the small fields of the natives; another cactus, tree-shaped and brutally ugly, begins to appear in groves, very repulsive, and with leprous-looking bulbs of pale blossoms on the ends of the spiked, fleshy leaves. ”

“ BECAUSE the Greeks in olden times applied the word Cactus to a prickly plant, Linnæus, often called the Father of Botany, gave the same name to our wonderful American growth and since his time these strange and varied plants have borne this nomenclature.
We can hardly imagine any group of plants more interesting. There are over eight hundred varieties of curious and unexpected forms, bearing tubular or rotate flowers most varied in size and color—white, pink, purple, yellow, crimson, deep red—all beautiful and fascinating, and in our Northern country, protected in the conservatories. ”

“ Turning now to a consideration of those kinds known as garden plants, we find that comparatively few of the species known to botanists are represented in English collections, though, perhaps, we may safely say that not one of the kinds known would be considered unworthy of cultivation except by those who despise Cactuses of whatever kind. Their flowers are conspicuous both in size and brilliancy of colour; and in the curious, grotesque, and even beautifully symmetrical shapes of their stems, one finds attractions of no ordinary kind. ”

“ About noon I reached one of those most troublesome cactus woods, which frequently run across the prairies. The present one ran like a wall for miles across my path. There is no chance of riding through these thickets, as the prickly plants grow closely together. Though they are most disagreeable to the hunter, their appearance is most attractive to the naturalist, through the brilliant colour of the cactus flowers, and the peculiar shape of the plants. ”

“ One of the most curious of the plant people is the cactus, particularly the one known as the "desert water bottle." Like many two-legged people it has a rough, unsociable exterior, but a kind heart. Let a traveller come upon one of these bristly cactuses, after long, thirsty hours, and he will realize what this means. ”

“ While a cactus in bloom is a marvelous sight, so gorgeous in fact that it is almost unbelievable and unreal, I prefer flowers a little less fervid and more constant.
There are, however, two distinct advantages which most of the cacti possess, making them available for use where no other plants could be kept. They are practically proof against any hardships that may be imposed upon them, and they take up very little room. In addition to that they are always an interesting curiosity, and for that reason alone well worth the little attention they require. ”

“ The Crimson Flowered Hedgehog Cactus is this flaming cactus flower, which grows generally at altitudes of five to seven thousand feet, its scarlet blossoms flashing here and there over the mountain slopes, or dotting the oak, juniper, and pine formations in dense masses of brilliant hue, compact clumps one to six feet across of twenty to three hundred stems all closely set together; usually growing in rounded mounds which exclude all other growth, and sometimes comprising an important part of the pine and juniper plant coverings. ”

“ This cactus is columnar and little branched; in some instances he grows to a height of forty-five feet, and [7] is a very imposing sight in the landscape. The stems and branches are pale green or yellow-green with a scurfy waxy coating over the surface, are not tough, and sometimes a large tree can be cut down with a small pocketknife! The rose-colored flowers are bell-shaped or funnel-shaped and night-blooming, appearing only on the older plants. The inch-long fruit is rose-colored and covered with scales and tufts of hair or short wool! How strangely at times Nature does her work! ”

“ Cactus, cacteæ, is an order of plants that abounds in all parts of the island. They consist of a calyx adhering to the ovary, the corolla divided into several segments, and the petals variously coloured. The fruit is a succulent seedy berry, in some species of a beautiful red colour. The stems are covered with small tubercles, containing tufts of sharp spines, varying in size. The “Turk’s cap,” melocactus communis, is one of the handsomest of its tribe. It rises in a globular-shaped stem, deeply channelled, of a green colour, and covered with long spines. ”

“ THE cactus is the Carlyle of vegetation. Here, in Southern California, it assumes many of its most uncouth and affected attitudes, puts on all its prickles and its angles, and its blossoms of rare splendour. Those who are better informed than myself assure me that the cactus is a vegetable. I take their word for it. Indeed, the cactus itself may have said so to them. There is nothing a cactus might not do. But it surely stands among plants somewhere where bats do among animals, and the apteryx among birds. Look for instance at this tract of cactus which we cross before Caliente. ”

“ It is said that nowhere on the continent is so great a variety of vegetable growth presented in one locality, as is here to be seen in the full perfection of lusty growth. The cacti at this point are marvels of variety and beauty. One's idea of what a cactus is can never be complete until one has witnessed a scene such as this, and a collection of this magnitude. ”

“ Cultivation.—The Hatchet Cactus grows very slowly, specimens such as that represented in our Illustration being many years old. We have seen healthy plants, freshly imported, grow for a few months, and then suddenly die, the inside of the stem rotting whilst outside it looked perfectly healthy. It is always grown on its own roots, but probably it would thrive better if grafted on the stem of some dwarf Cereus or Echinocactus. ”

“ Yet when you come to study the Cactus you will find out that the thick, fleshy mass is really its stem, and the prickles its leaves which have taken on these strange shapes. By means of its unusual form the Cactus can live where our common plants would die of the dry heat in a day or two. The power plants have of changing their bodies so as to fit themselves to live under all kinds of conditions is one of the strongest proofs that they are alive. ”

“ The cactus skin is clothing of a people who appear, who eat the pulp and work the thorns into houses and into ships as water, first shallow, deeper grows; and again into forts upon the cacti brunches growing up out of the water, thorn protected from sea monsters. ”

“ One of the commonest of Cactuses in the latter country is the Rat's-tail Cactus (Cereus flagelliformis) , and it is no unusual thing to see a large window of a cottager's dwelling thickly draped on the inside with the long, tail-like growths and handsome rose-coloured flowers of this plant. This is only one among dozens of species, all equally useful for window gardening, and all as interesting and beautiful as those above described. ”

“ The flowers are borne on the ends of the young, partly-developed tubercles, near the centre of the head; they are erect, tubular, 3 in. to 4 in. long, scaly, gradually widening upwards; the sepals and petals are numerous, and form a beautiful flower of the ordinary Cactus type, quite 4 in. across, and of a rich, clear yellow colour. The anthers, which also are yellow, form a column in the centre, through which the nine-rayed stigma protrudes. Strong plants sometimes produce two flowers together. ”

“ I noticed in this part of the country a species of cactus that had previously escaped my observation. It grows about eighteen inches high, spreads out in large, broad leaves, and is fed upon by cochineal insects, which the natives gather, and sell at a low price. It bears a fruit which resembles, in form and color, the pine-apple, and is about twice the size of a hen’s egg. Inside the skin is a white pulpy substance, filled with small black seeds, and pleasant to the taste. ”

“ Although the Cactus order is, in its distribution by Nature, limited to the regions of America, yet it is now represented in various parts of the Old World by plants which are apparently as wild and as much at home as when in their native countries. ”

“ In flower and fruit, however, they are euphorbias to the end; it is only in the thick and fleshy stem that they resemble their nobler and more beautiful Western rivals. No true cactus grows truly wild anywhere on earth except in America. The family was developed there, and, till man transplanted it, never succeeded in gaining a foothold elsewhere. Essentially tropical in type, it was provided with no means of dispersing its seeds across the enormous expanse of intervening ocean which separated its habitat from the sister continents. ”