arge, with broad scarlet petals.

P. Kaufmanni (Kaufmann's).--Flowers purplish-red, very large.

P. kermesina magnus (large scarlet).--An enormous-flowered kind, having
produced blossoms which measured 10 in. across; petals vivid orange with
a tip and central stripe of red; sepals blood-red.

P. Pfersdorffii. (Pfersdorff's).--Flowers as in Cereus grandiflorus,
8 in. to 10 in. across, very fragrant; petals white; sepals yellow,
brownish outside.

P. Rempleri (Rempler's).--Branches three-angled; flowers with short,
linear, incurved sepals; petals long, broad, arranged like a tube,
colour salmon-red.

P. roseus grandiflorus (large rose-flowered); Fig. 14.--Flowers 6 in.
long and broad, nodding, white.

[Illustration: FIG. 14.--PHYLLOCACTUS ROSEUS GRANDIFLORUS.]

P. Schlimii (Schlim's).--Branches three-angled; flowers large, sepals
bright purple; petals broad, purple, tinged with scarlet.

P. splendens (splendid).--Flowers 8 in. across, purple-pink.

P. Wrayi (Wray's).--Flowers 5 in. long by 8 in. in diameter; sepals brown
on the outside, yellow inside; petals yellowish-white, fragrant when
first expanded.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GENUS CEREUS.

(From cereus, pliant; in reference to the stems of some species.)

Over 200 distinct species of Cereus are, according to botanists,
distributed over the tropical and temperate regions of America and the
West Indies, extending to the Galapagos, or "Tortoise" Islands, 200
miles off the coast of Peru. It was in these islands that the late
Charles Darwin found several small kinds of Cereus, some of them growing
near the snow-line in exposed situations on the highest mountains. In
Mexico, C. giganteus, the most colossal of all Cacti, is found rearing
its tall, straight, columnar stems to a height of 60 ft., and branching
near the top, "like petrified giants stretching out their arms in
speechless pain, whilst others stand like lonely sentinels keeping their
dreary watch on the edge of precipices." In the West Indies most of the
night-flowering kinds are common, their long, creeping stems clinging by
means of aerial roots to rocks, or to the exposed trunks of trees, where
their enormous, often fragrant, flowers are produced in great abundance,
expanding only after the sun has set. Between these three distinct
groups we find among the plants of this elegant genus great variety both
in size and form of the stem and in the flower characters of the
different species. A large