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Its stems are slender, and it may be grown satisfactorily when treated as a wall plant. For its cultivation, the treatment advised for Phyllocactuses will be found suitable. When well grown and flowered it surpasses in brilliancy of colours almost every other plant known.
Cultivation. For the following cultural notes we are indebted to a most successful grower of Cactuses in Germany, whose collection of Phyllocactuses is exceptionally rich and well managed: The growing season for these plants is from about the end of April, or after the flowers are over, till the end of August. As soon as growth commences, the plants should be repotted.
During summer all the Phyllocactuses delight in plenty of water, and, when growing freely, a weak solution of manure affords them good food. Epiphyllums must be kept always more or less moist at the root, though, of course, when growing freely, they require more water than when growth has ceased for the year, which happens late in autumn.
The history of this plant is not known; but it is supposed to be a hybrid between C. Pitajayi or variabilis and one of the scarlet-flowered Phyllocactuses, or, possibly, C. speciosissimus. It first flowered at Kew, in July, 1870.
The flowers are borne generally on the ends of the branches, and are drooping in habit; in form they are more like the Epiphyllums than the ordinary Phyllocactuses, as they have their petals arranged in a sort of tube about 3 in. long. The fruit is a red berry as large as a gooseberry. Honduras, 1839. Reg. 3031.
These notches are really the divisions between one leaf and another, for the flat, fleshy portions or wings of the stems of these plants are simply modified leaves not properly separated from each other and from the stem, but still to all intents and purposes leaves which, as the plant increases and matures, gradually wither away, leaving the central or woody portion to assume the cylindrical stem which we find in all old Phyllocactuses.
Phyllocactuses are therefore epiphytes when in a wild state, but under cultivation with us, they thrive best when planted in pots or in baskets the latter method being adapted for one or two smaller kinds. 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.
If we compare any of the Phyllocactuses with Cereus triangularis, or with C. speciosissimus, we shall find that the flowers are precisely similar both in form and colour, and sometimes also in size. In all the kinds the stem is compressed laterally, so as to look as if it had been hammered out flat; or sometimes it is three-angled, and the margins are deeply notched or serrated.
The majority of the gorgeous Phyllocactuses which we now possess are of only recent introduction, or are the result of cultivation and crossing. The species are natives of various parts of tropical America, chiefly Mexico and Central America, where they are found generally growing, in company with Bromeliads and Orchids, upon the trunks of gigantic forest-trees.
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