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In a cottage window this operation may be successfully performed if a box with a movable glass top, or a large bell glass, be used to keep the grafts close till they have taken. For the spherical-stemmed kinds of Mamillaria, Cereus, Echinocactus, &c., a different method is found to answer.
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.
From Mamillaria, however, it differs in the form of its tubercles, which are hatchet-shaped, and cleft at the apex, where each division is clothed with small, horny, overlapping scales, not unlike the back of a woodlouse hence the specific name. Cultivation.
The flowers expand in June, several together, from the top of the stem; they are round, 1 in. across, the petals being numerous, pale yellow in colour, tinged with red on the outside. Introduced from Mexico, 1840. This curious little plant requires stove treatment, and thrives when grafted on the stem of some other kind. It is sometimes known as Mamillaria turbinata.
It should be grown in a cool greenhouse, or in the window of a dwelling-room, always, however, in a position where it would get plenty of sunlight. An upright cylindrical-stemmed species, very much like a Mamillaria in the form and position of the tubercles and the numerous greyish hair-like spines arranged in a radiating ring on the top of each tubercle.
Grafting is also adopted for some of the Cactuses to add to the grotesqueness of their appearance; a spherical Echinocactus or Mamillaria being united to the columnar stem of another kind, so as to produce the appearance of a drum stick; or a large round-growing species grafted on to three such stems, which may then be likened to a globe supported upon three columns.
The flowers, of course, appear according to the length of time it takes for the species to grow to flowering size. Several kinds of Echinocactus are distinguished from the rest in having the ridges divided into tubercles, which are often globular and arranged in a spiral round the stem, as in the genus Mamillaria; to this section the present species belongs.
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 headquarters of the genus Mamillaria is Mexico, and the countries immediately to the north, a few being scattered over the West Indies, Bolivia, Brazil, and Chili. Many of them grow on mountains where the temperature is moderate, but where the sunlight is always intense. Others are found on limestone or gravelly hills, among short herbage, or on grassy prairies.
The cap is persistent, and increases annually with the stem. MAMILLARIA. Stems short, usually globose, and covered with tubercles or mammae, rarely ridged, the apex bearing spiny cushions; flowers mostly in rings round the stem. PELECYPHORA. Stem small, club-shaped; tubercles in spiral rows, and flattened on the top, where are two rows of short scale-like spines.
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