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Updated: May 19, 2025
It is now about a century since some of the most beautiful of Cactaceous plants came into cultivation in this country, and amongst them was the plant now known as E. truncatum, but then called Cactus Epiphyllum; the name Cactus being used in a generic sense, and not, as now, merely as a general term for the Natural Order.
As in the majority of Cactuses, the stems of Epiphyllum become woody and almost cylindrical with age, the axes of the branchlets swell out, and the edges either disappear or remain attached, like a pair of wings. Cultivation.
It would not be easy to find a more beautiful object during winter than an Epiphyllum, 5 ft. or 6 ft. high, and nearly the same in width at the base, forming a dense pyramid of drooping, strap-like branches bearing several hundreds of their bright and delicate coloured blossoms all at one time, and lasting in beauty for several weeks.
Upon the same stock some grafts of Epiphyllum had previously been worked, so that it is probable these two aliens will form on their nurse-stem, the Pereskia, an attractive combination. It represents a stem of Pereskia Bleo upon which the Rat's-tail Cactus and an Epiphyllum have been grafted.
Flowers solitary, except in the Pereskia, and borne on the top or side of the stem; they are composed of numerous parts or segments; the sepals and petals are not easily distinguished from each other; the calyx tube is joined to, or combined, with the ovary, and is often covered with scale-like sepals and hairs or spines; the calyx is sometimes partly united so as to form a tube, and the petals are spread in regular whorls, except in the Epiphyllum.
Then there is the Indian Fig, with branches like battledores, joined by their ends; the Epiphyllum and Phyllocactus, with flattened leaf-like stems; the columnar spiny Cereus, with deeply channelled stems and the appearance of immense candelabra.
Tube of flower white; petals purple, becoming almost white towards the base. Tube violet; petals dark purple. Bright scarlet, paler at the base of the petals. Tube purplish-scarlet; petals bright scarlet. This is an interesting and beautiful hybrid, raised from Epiphyllum and a Cereus of some kind.
Botanists find good specific characters in the size and structure of the seeds, in the character of the fruits, &c.; but for horticultural purposes these are of little or no value. The thirteen species included in the genus Pereskia differ so markedly from all other kinds of Cactus, that at first sight one can scarcely believe they are true Cactuses, closely related to Cereus and Epiphyllum.
By using the pollen from one kind for dusting on to the stigma of another, hybrids may be obtained, and it is owing to the readiness with which the plants of this family cross with each other, that so many hybrids and forms of the genera Epiphyllum and Phyllocactus have been raised.
The similarity of its branches to Epiphyllum led to its being included in that genus by Haworth. This variety has larger, broader joints, which are bronzy-purple in colour. Mag. 3079. Stems terete, as thick as a goose-quill. Branches usually in clusters, and sometimes jointed, green, with small red dots and little tufts of fine, hair-like bristles.
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