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Updated: June 9, 2025
As there is a plentiful supply of plants, the Indians do not trouble to carry this "boiler" about with them, but make a fresh one at every stage of their journeyings. No less than three sections of Cactuses, viz., the above, Echinocactus, and Echinocereus, owe their names to their hedgehog-like stems.
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. Propagation.
In the case of Cactuses, however, we resort to grafting, not because of any difficulty in obtaining the kinds thus treated from either cuttings or seeds, as we have already seen that all the species of Cactuses grow freely from seed, or are easily raised from cuttings of their stems, nor yet to effect any change in the characters of the plants thus treated, but because some of the more delicate kinds, and especially the smaller ones, are apt to rot at the base during the damp, foggy weather of our winters; and, to prevent this, it is found a good and safe plan to graft them on to stocks formed of more robust kinds, or even on to plants of other genera, such as Cereus or Echinocactus.
LEUCHTENBERGIA. Stem naked at the base; tubercles on the upper part large, fleshy, elongated, three-angled, bearing at the apex a tuft of long, thin, gristle-like spines. ECHINOCACTUS. Stem short, ridged, spiny; calyx tube of the flower large, bell-shaped; ovary and fruit scaly. DISCOCACTUS. Stem short; calyx tube thin, the throat filled by the stamens; ovary and fruit smooth.
For the genera Cereus, Echinopsis, Echinocactus, Mamillaria, Opuntia, and Melocactus, a moist tropical house is provided, and in April the plants are freely watered at the root, and syringed overhead both morning and afternoon on all bright days. This treatment is continued till the end of July, when syringing is suspended, and the water supplied to the roots gradually reduced.
The name Echinocactus was given to E. tenuispinus, which was first introduced into English gardens in 1825. The spiny character of this species is surpassed by that of many of the more recently introduced kinds; still it is sufficient to justify its being compared to a hedgehog.
The very soft, fleshy stems of some of the kinds such as the Echinocactus, should be exposed to the air for a time, so that the cut at the base may dry before it is buried in the soil.
This is a beautiful flowering plant, more like an Echinocactus than a Mamillaria. It should be grown in a warm greenhouse all the year round. Old stems develop offsets from the base, by which the species may be multiplied. This is closely related to M. bicolor, but differs in having an unbranched stem and numerous richly-coloured flowers.
The petals are pure white, recurved, displaying the crown of yellow stamens, arranged in a ring about the rather small, rayed stigma. The tube is uniformly green, except that the scale-like bracts are edged with long, blackish, silky hairs. A native of Mexico; introduced about fifty years ago, when it was figured in the Botanical Magazine and elsewhere as a species of Echinocactus.
But in the meantime they were dying of thirst! At this moment a happy idea suggested itself to Lucien. He saw the cactus plants growing near. There were large globes of the echinocactus. He remembered having read that these often assuaged the thirst of the desert traveller. The plants were soon reached, and their succulent masses laid open by the knives of the hunters.
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