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The scars on the stem are of three kinds, leaf, bud-scale, and flower-cluster scars. The pupils should notice that the buds are always just above the large triangular scars. If they are still in doubt as to the cause of these marks, show them some house-plant with well-developed buds in the axils of the leaves, and ask them to compare the position of these buds with their branches.
The twigs seem to be found just below the bud-rings, as the upper leaf-buds usually develop best and the lower buds are single, containing flowers only. The buds are terminal, and axillary, from the axils of the leaves of the preceding year, usually from those at the ends of the branchlets. They are covered with brown scales and contain many leaves. The leaves are needle-shaped and short.
Here are also woody trailers of moonseed, with its minute white flowers in the axils of leaves that might pass at first glance for one of the many varieties of wild grapes; the hyacinth bean, with its deliciously fragrant chocolate flowers tinged with violet, that is so kind in covering the unsightly underbrush of damp places.
Just where the four leaves are thus joined to the stem is a cluster of some six, eight, ten or even more, large, yellowish white, or greenish white blossoms. Perhaps at the next set of leaves, about four inches down the stem, there will be several other blossoms, in the axils.
The name for this kind is rather misleading, the spines being both fewer and less conspicuous than in many other species of Mamillaria. Stem about 6 in. high, nearly globose; tubercles rather large, swollen, with tufts of short white wool in their axils, and stellate clusters of spines springing from disks of white wool on the top.
For shape and colour, few plants would look more lovely in a hothouse; but it would soon need to be confined in a den by itself, like a jaguar or an alligator. It grows in little bunches, in the axils of pairs of fleshy leaves, on a climbing vine. When plucked, a milky sap exudes from it. It is a cousin of our periwinkles, and cousin, too, of the Thevetia, which we saw at St.
The parallel veining of the leaves is distinctly marked. The stem is a plate at the base, to which these fleshy scales are attached. In the centre, or in the axils of the scales, the newly-forming bulbs can be seen, in onions that are sprouting.
The leaves are oblong, pale green, finely toothed, lance-shaped, wrinkled and rough. The usually bluish-lilac, sometimes pink or white flowers, borne in the axils of the upper leaves in whorls of three or four, form loose terminal spikes or clusters.
The outer pair sometimes have buds in their axils. Remove the scales one by one with a knife, or better, with a stout needle. The scales gradually become thinner as we proceed, and pass into leaves, so that we cannot tell where the scales end and leaves begin. After about six pairs are removed, we come, in the larger buds, to leaves with axillary flower-clusters.
Stem similar to the last, but usually proliferous at the base; tubercles angular, short, woolly in the axils, and bearing four rigid, short, reddish-brown spines on the apex. Flowers pale rose, with a line of purple down the middle of each petal; they are developed near the top of the stem, in May. Native country, Mexico. This plant thrives if treated as recommended for M. pusilla.
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