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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.
Next day I lazed, and Haigh, taking his turn on duty, rode down to the neighbourhood of Talaiti de Talt, and brought back news that mystified us still further. The good woman who owned the farm knew nothing about the matter, neither did the ploughman from whom I had bought the three-angled hoe; but a stonemason in the cemetery above Alayor reported as follows:
Stems trailing, with numerous long branches of most extraordinary form. Imagine a three-angled, fleshy branch, often several feet in length, the angles winged, about ½ in. deep, green, with smooth, reddish margins. At intervals of about 2 in. the branch has the appearance of having been twisted half round. There is no other plant with branches anything like these.
It should be grown in stove temperature, in a basket of peat fibre, or, better still, on a piece of soft fern-stem. It is always found on the branches or trunks of trees when growing wild. Older stems three-angled, young ones flattened, jointed; joints 2 in. broad, stiff with deep notches. Flowers in the notches, small, white, produced in June.
This species is a native of Jamaica, and was introduced in 1810. A stiff, ungraceful plant, about 2 ft. high, very similar in its branches to a Phyllocactus. This species requires the temperature of a stove. Habit straggling; branches usually in forks, ¼ in. in diameter, three-angled; angles wavy or slightly notched, grey-green.
Even three-angled pollen grains are seen sometimes. Other marks are observed in the form of the anthers and the spur. There seem to be very many local subspecies of the field-pansy. Jordan has described some from the vicinity of Lyons, and Wittrock others from the northern parts of Europe.
The smooth, simple stems, which grow about 2 feet tall, bear lanceolate-linear, entire leaves and small clusters of usually blue, though sometimes pink or white flowers, crowded in terminal spikes. The small, brown, glistening three-angled seeds, which have a little white hilum near their apices, retain their viability three years.
A word from them, and a prince would slay his father only to discover that the promises of Siva's priests were something less to build on than the hope of loot. There would be another heir apparent to be let into the secret another man to scheme and hunger for the throne another party to the bloody three-angled intrigue which kept the Siva-servers fat and the princes lean.
Flowers as in Cereus grandiflorus, 8 in. to 10 in. across, very fragrant; petals white; sepals yellow, brownish outside. Branches three-angled; flowers with short, linear, incurved sepals; petals long, broad, arranged like a tube, colour salmon-red. Flowers 6 in. long and broad, nodding, white. Branches three-angled; flowers large, sepals bright purple; petals broad, purple, tinged with scarlet.
The stems are three-angled, light green, and bear clusters of short stiff spines along the angles at intervals of 2 in. Flowers in autumn. Stems four to six-angled, 2 in. wide, dark green, bearing little tufts of hair and thin white spines along the angles, and a profusion of aerial roots.
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