Cactus Culture For Amateurs written by W. Watson

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CACTUS CULTURE
FOR AMATEURS:

BEING

DESCRIPTIONS OF THE VARIOUS CACTUSES
GROWN IN THIS COUNTRY.

with

FULL AND PRACTICAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR
THEIR SUCCESSFUL CULTIVATION.

By W. WATSON,
Assistant Curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED.

LONDON:
L. UPCOTT GILL, 170, STRAND, W.C.

1889.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--A COLLECTION OF CACTUSES. Frontispiece.]

PREFACE

The idea that Cactuses were seldom seen in English gardens, because so
little was known about their cultivation and management, suggested to
the Publisher of this book that a series of chapters on the best kinds,
and how to grow them successfully, would be useful. These chapters were
written for and published in The Bazaar, in 1885 and following years.
Some alterations and additions have been made, and the whole is now
offered as a thoroughly practical and descriptive work on the subject.

The descriptions are as simple and complete as they could be made; the
names here used are those adopted at Kew; and the cultural directions
are as full and detailed as is necessary. No species or variety is
omitted which is known to be in cultivation, or of sufficient interest
to be introduced. The many excellent figures of Cactuses in the
Botanical Magazine (Bot. Mag.) are referred to under each species
described, except in those cases where a complete figure is given in
this book. My claims to be heard as a teacher in this department are
based on an experience of ten years in the care and cultivation of the
large collection of Cactuses at Kew.

Whatever the shortcomings of my share of the work may be, I feel certain
that the numerous and excellent illustrations which the Publisher has
obtained for this book cannot fail to render it attractive, and, let us
also hope, contribute something towards bringing Cactuses into favour
with horticulturists, professional as well as amateur.

W. WATSON.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION

BOTANICAL CHARACTERS

CULTIVATION

PROPAGATION

THE GENUS EPIPHYLLUM

THE GENUS PHYLLOCACTUS

THE GENUS CEREUS

THE GENUS ECHINOCACTUS

THE GENUS ECHINOPSIS

THE GENUS MELOCACTUS

THE GENUS PILOCEREUS

THE GENUS MAMILLARIA

THE GENUS LEUCHTENBERGIA

THE GENUS PELECYPHORA

THE GENUS OPUNTIA

THE GENUS PERESKIA

THE GENUS RHIPSALIS

TEMPERATURES

DEALERS IN CACTUSES

INDEX OF SPECIES

CACTUS CULTURE
FOR AMATEURS

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

The Cactus family is not popular among English horticulturists in these
days, scarcely half a dozen species out of about a thousand known being
considered good enough to be included among favourite garden plants.
Probably five hundred kinds have been, or are, in cultivation in the
gardens of the few specialists who take an interest in Cactuses; but
these are practically unknown in English horticulture. It is not,
however, very many years ago that there was something like a Cactus
mania, when rich amateurs vied with each other in procuring and growing
large collections of the rarest and newest kinds.

"About the year 1830, Cacti began to be specially patronised by several
rich plant amateurs, of whom may be mentioned the Duke of Bedford, who
formed a fine collection at Woburn Abbey, the Duke of Devonshire, and
Mr. Harris, of Kingsbury. Mr. Palmer, of Shakelwell, had become
possessed of Mr. Haworth's collection, to which he greatly added by
purchases; he, however, found his rival in the Rev. H. Williams, of
Hendon, who formed a fine and select collection, and, on account of the
eagerness of growers to obtain the new and rare plants, high prices were
given for them, ten, twelve, and even twenty and thirty guineas often
being given for single plants of the Echinocactus. Thus private
collectors were induced to forward from their native countries--chiefly
from Mexico and Chili--extensive collections of Cacti." (quoting J.
Smith. A.L.S., ex-Curator of the Royal Gardens. Kew).

This reads like what might be written of the position held now in
England by the Orchid family, and what has been written of Tulips and
other plants whose popularity has been great at some time or other. Why
have Cactuses gone out of favour? It is impossible to give any
satisfactory answer to this question. No doubt they belong to that class
of objects which is only popular whilst it pleases the eye or tickles
the fancy; and the eye and the fancy having tired of it, look to
something different.

The general belief with respect to Cactuses is that they are all wanting
in beauty, that they are remarkable only in that they are exceedingly
curious in form, and as a rule very ugly. It is true that none of them
possess any claims to gracefulness of habit or elegance of foliage, such
as are usual in popular plants, and, when not in flower, very few of the
Cactuses would answer to our present ideas of beauty with respect to the
plants we cultivate. Nevertheless, the stems of many of them (see
Frontispiece, Fig. 1) are peculiarly attractive on account of their
strange, even fantastic, forms, their spiny clothing, the absence of
leaves, except in very few cases, and their singular manner of growth.
To the few who care for Cactuses there is a great deal of beauty, even
in these characters, although perhaps the eye has to be educated up to
it.

If the stems are more curious than beautiful, the flowers of the
majority of the species of Cactuses are unsurpassed, as regards size and
form, and brilliancy and variety in colour, by any other family of
plants, not even excluding Orchids. In size some of the flowers equal
those of the Queen of Water Lilies (Victoria regia), whilst the colours
vary from the purest white to brilliant crimson and deep yellow. Some of
them are also deliciously fragrant. Those kinds which expand their huge
blossoms only at night are particularly interesting; and in the early
days of Cactus culture the flowering of one of these was a great event
in English gardens.

Of the many collections of Cactuses formed many years ago in England,
that at Kew is the only one that still exists. This collection has
always been rich in the number of species it contained; at the present
time the number of kinds cultivated there is about 500. Mr. Peacock, of
Hammersmith, also has a large collection of Cactuses, many of which he
has at various times exhibited in public places, such as the Crystal
Palace, and the large conservatory attached to the Royal Horticultural
Society's Gardens at South Kensington. Other smaller collections are
cultivated in the Botanic Gardens at Oxford, Cambridge, Glasnevin, and
Edinburgh.

A great point in favour of the plants of the Cactus family for gardens
of small size, and even for window gardening--a modest phase of plant
culture which has made much progress in recent years--is the simpleness
of their requirements under cultivation. No plants give so much pleasure
in return for so small an amount of attention as do these. Their
peculiarly tough-skinned succulent stems enable them to go for an
extraordinary length of time without water; indeed, it may be said that
the treatment most suitable for many of them during the greater portion
of the year is such as would be fatal to most other plants. Cactuses are
children of the dry barren plains and mountain sides, living where
scarcely any other form of vegetation could find nourishment, and
thriving with the scorching heat of the sun over their heads, and their
roots buried in the dry, hungry soil, or rocks which afford them
anchorage and food.

In beauty and variety of flowers, in the remarkable forms of their
stems, in the simple nature of their requirements, and in the other
points of special interest which characterise this family, and which
supply the cultivator and student with an unfailing source of pleasure
and instruction, the Cactus family is peculiarly rich.

CHAPTER II.

BOTANICAL CHARACTERS.

Although strictly botanical information may be considered as falling
outside the limits of a treatise intended only for the cultivator, yet a
short account of the principal characters by which Cactuses are grouped
and classified may not be without interest.

From the singular form and succulent nature of the whole of the Cactus
family, it might be inferred that, in these characters alone, we have
reliable marks of relationship, and that it would be safe to call all
those plants Cactuses in which such characters are manifest. A glance at
some members of other families will, however, soon show how easily one
might thus be mistaken. In the Euphorbias we find a number of kinds,
especially amongst those which inhabit the dry, sandy plains of South
Africa, which bear a striking resemblance to many of the Cactuses,
particularly the columnar ones and the Rhipsalis. (The Euphorbias all
have milk-like sap, which, on pricking their stems or leaves, at once
exudes and thus reveals their true character. The sap of the Cactuses is
watery). Amongst Stapelias, too, we meet with plants which mimic the
stem characters of some of the smaller kinds of Cactus. Again, in the
Cactuses themselves we have curious cases of plant mimicry; as, for
instance, the Rhipsalis, which looks like a bunch of Mistletoe, and the
Pereskia, the leaves and habit of which are more like what belong to,
say, the Gooseberry family than to a form of Cactus. From this it will
be seen that although these plants are almost all succulent, and
curiously formed, they are by no means singular in this respect.

The characters of the order are thus defined by botanists: Cactuses are
either herbs, shrubs, or trees, with soft flesh and copious watery
juice. Root woody, branching, with soft bark. Stem branching or simple,
round, angular, channelled, winged, flattened, or cylindrical; sometimes
clothed with numerous tufts of spines which vary in texture, size, and
form very considerably; or, when spineless, the stems bear numerous
dot-like scars, termed areoles. Leaves very minute, or entirely absent,
falling off very early, except in the Pereskia and several of the
Opuntias, in which they are large, fleshy, and persistent. 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. Stamens many, springing from the side
of the tube or throat of the calyx, sometimes joined to the petals,
generally equal in length; anthers small and oblong. Ovary smooth, or
covered with scales and spines, or woolly, one-celled; style simple,
filiform or cylindrical, with a stigma of two or more spreading rays,
upon which are small papillae. Fruit pulpy, smooth, scaly, or spiny, the
pulp soft and juicy, sweet or acid, and full of numerous small, usually
black, seeds.

Tribe I.--Calyx tube produced beyond the Ovary. Stem covered with
Tubercles, or Ribs, bearing Spines.

1. MELOCACTUS. Stem globose; flowers in a dense cap-like head, composed
of layers of bristly wool and slender spines, amongst which the small
flowers are developed. The cap is persistent, and increases annually
with the stem.

2. 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.

3. PELECYPHORA. Stem small, club-shaped; tubercles in spiral rows, and
flattened on the top, where are two rows of short scale-like spines.

4. 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.

5. ECHINOCACTUS. Stem short, ridged, spiny; calyx tube of the flower
large, bell-shaped; ovary and fruit scaly.

6. DISCOCACTUS. Stem short; calyx tube thin, the throat filled by the
stamens; ovary and fruit smooth.

7. CEREUS. Stem often long and erect, sometimes scandent, branching,
ridged or angular; flowers from the sides of the stem; calyx tube
elongated and regular; stamens free.

8. PHYLLOCACTUS. Stem flattened, jointed, and notched; flowers from the
sides, large, having long, thin tubes and a regular arrangement of the
petals.

9. EPIPHYLLUM. Stem flattened, jointed; joints short; flowers from the
apices of the joints; calyx tube short; petals irregular, almost
bilabiate.

Tribe II.--Calyx-tube not produced beyond the Ovary. Stem branching,
jointed.

10. RHIPSALIS. Stem thin and rounded, angular, or flattened, bearing
tufts of hair when young; flowers small; petals spreading; ovary smooth;
fruit a small pea-like berry.

11. OPUNTIA. Stem jointed, joints broad and fleshy, or rounded; spines
barbed; flowers large; fruit spinous, large, pear-like.

12. PERESKIA. Stem woody, spiny, branching freely; leaves fleshy, large,
persistent; flowers medium in size, in panicles on the ends of the
branches.

The above is a key to the genera on the plan of the most recent
botanical arrangement, but for horticultural purposes it is necessary
that the two genera Echinopsis and Pilocereus should be kept up. They
come next to Cereus, and are distinguished as follows:

ECHINOPSIS. Stem as in Echinocactus, but the flowers are produced low
down from the side of the stem, and the flower tube is long and curved.

PILOCEREUS. Stem tall, columnar, bearing long silky hairs as well as
spines; flowers in a head on the top of the stem, rarely produced.

With the aid of this key anyone ought to be able to make out to what
genus a particular Cactus belongs, and by referring to the descriptions
of the species, he may succeed in making out what the plant is.

For the classification of Cactuses, botanists rely mainly on their
floral organs and fruit. We may, therefore, take a plant of
Phyllocactus, with which most of us are familiar, and, by observing the
structure of its flowers, obtain some idea of the botanical characters
of the whole order.

Phyllocactus has thin woody stems and branches composed of numerous long
leaf-like joints, growing out of one another, and resembling thick
leaves joined by their ends. Along the sides of these joints there are
numerous notches, springing from which are the large handsome flowers.
On looking carefully, we perceive that the long stalk-like expansion is
not a stalk, because it is above the seed vessel, which is, of course, a
portion of the flower itself. It is a hollow tube, and contains the long
style or connection between the seed vessel and the stigma, a (Fig. 2).
This tube, then, must be the calyx, and the small scattered scale-like
bodies, b (Fig. 2), which clothe the outside, are really calyx lobes.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--FLOWER OF PHYLLOCACTUS, CUT LENGTHWISE.

a, Calyx Tube. b, Calyx Lobes. c, Ditto, assuming the form of Petals. d,
Stamens. e, Style. f, Ovary or Seed Vessel.]

Nearer the top of the flower, these calyx lobes are better developed,
until, surrounding the corolla, we find them assuming the form and
appearance of petals, c (Fig. 2). The corolla is composed of a large
number of long strap-shaped pointed petals, very thin and delicate,
often beautifully coloured, and generally spreading outwards. Springing
from the bases of these petals, we find the stamens, d (Fig. 2), a great
number of them, forming a bunch of threads unequal in length, and
bearing on their tips the hay-seed-like anthers, which are attached to
the threads by one of their points. The style is a long cylindrical
body, e (Fig. 2), which stretches from the ovary to the top of the
flower, where it splits into a head of spreading linear rays, 1/2 in. in
length. When the flower withers, the seed vessel, f (Fig. 2), remains on
the plant and expands into a large succulent fruit, inside which is a
mass of pulpy matter, inclosing the numerous, small, black, bony seeds.

It must not be supposed that all the genera into which Cactuses are
divided are characterised by large flowers such as would render their
study as easy as the genus taken as an illustration. In some, such for
instance as the Rhipsalis, the flowers are small, and therefore less
easy to dissect than those of Phyllocactus.

The stems of Cactuses show a very wide range of variation in size, in
form, and in structure. In size, we have the colossal Cereus giganteus,
whose straight stems when old are as firm as iron, and rise with many
ascending arms or rear their tall leafless trunks like ships' masts to a
height of 60 ft. or 70 ft. From this we descend through a multitude of
various shapes and sizes to the tiny tufted Mamillarias, no larger than
a lady's thimble, or the creeping Rhipsalis, which lies along the hard
ground on which it grows, and looks like hairy caterpillars. In form,
the variety is very remarkable. We have the Mistletoe Cactus, with the
appearance of a bunch of Mistletoe, berries and all; the Thimble Cactus;
the Dumpling Cactus; the Melon Cactus; the Turk's cap Cactus; the
Rat's-tail Cactus; the Hedgehog Cactus; all having a resemblance to the
things whose names they bear. 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.
Totally devoid of leaves, and often skeleton-like in appearance, these
plants have a strange look about them, which is suggestive of some
fossilised forms of vegetation belonging to the past ages of the
mastodon, the elk, and the dodo, rather than to the living things of
to-day.

By far the greater part of the species of Cactuses belong to the group
with tall or elongated stems. "It is worthy of remark that as the stems
advance in age the angles fill up, or the articulations disappear, in
consequence of the slow growth of the woody axis and the gradual
development of the cellular substance; so that, at the end of a number
of years, all the branches of Cactuses, however angular or compressed
they originally may have been, become trunks that are either perfectly
cylindrical, or which have scarcely any visible angles."

A second large group is that of which the Melon and Hedgehog Cactuses
are good representatives, which have sphere-shaped stems, covered with
stout spines. We have hitherto spoken of the Cactuses as being without
leaves, but this is only true of them when in an old or fully-developed
state. On many of the stems we find upon their surface, or angles, small
tubercles, which, when young, bear tiny scale-like leaves. These,
however, soon wither and fall off, so that, to all appearance, leaves
are never present on these plants. There is one exception, however, in
the Barbadoes Gooseberry (Pereskia), which bears true and persistent
leaves; but these may be considered anomalous in the order.

The term "succulent" is applied to Cactuses because of the large
proportion of cellular tissue, i.e., flesh, of their stems, as compared
with the woody portion. In some of them, when young, the woody system
appears to be altogether absent, and they have the appearance of a mass
of fleshy matter, like a vegetable marrow. This succulent mass is
protected by a tough skin, often of leather-like firmness, and almost
without the little perforations called breathing and evaporating pores,
which in other plants are very numerous. This enables the Cactuses to
sustain without suffering the full ardour of the burning sun and
parched-up nature of the soil peculiar to the countries where they are
native. Nature has endowed Cactuses with a skin similar to what she
clothes many succulent fruits with, such as the Apple, Plum, Peach, &c.,
to which the sun's powerful rays are necessary for their growth and
ripening.

The spiny coat of the majority of Cactuses is no doubt intended to serve
as a protection from the wild animals inhabiting with them the sterile
plains of America, and to whom the cool watery flesh of the Cactus would
otherwise fall a prey. Indeed, these spines are not sufficient to
prevent some animals from obtaining the watery insides of these plants,
for we read that mules and wild horses kick them open and greedily
devour their succulent flesh. It has also been suggested that the spines
are intended to serve the plants as a sort of shade from the powerful
sunshine, as they often spread over and interlace about the stems.

CHAPTER III.

CULTIVATION.

By noting the conditions in which plants are found growing in a natural
state, we obtain some clue to their successful management, when placed
under conditions more or less artificial; and, in the case of Cactuses,
knowledge of this kind is of more than ordinary importance. In the
knowledge that, with only one or two exceptions, they will not exist in
any but sunny lands, where, during the greater part of the year, dry
weather prevails, we perceive what conditions are likely to suit them
when under cultivation in our plant-houses.

Cactuses are all American (using this term for the whole of the New
World) with only one or two exceptions (several species of Rhipsalis
have been found wild in Africa, Madagascar, and Ceylon), and, broadly
speaking, they are mostly tropical plants, not-withstanding the fact of
their extending to the snow-line on some of the Andean Mountains of
Chili, where several species of the Hedgehog Cactus were found by
Humboldt on the summit of rocks whose bases were planted in snow. In
California, in Mexico and Texas, in the provinces of Central and South
America, as far south as Chili, and in many of the islands contiguous to
the mainland, the Cactus family has become established wherever warmth
and drought, such as its members delight in, allowed them to get
established. In many of the coast lands, they occur in very large
numbers, forming forests of strange aspect, and giving to the landscape
a weird, picturesque appearance. Humboldt, in his "Views of Nature,"
says: "There is hardly any physiognomical character of exotic vegetation
that produces a more singular and ineffaceable impression on the mind of
the traveller than an arid plain, densely covered with columnar or
candelabra-like stems of Cactuses, similar to those near Cumana, New
Barcelona, Cora. and in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros." This
applies also to some of the small islands of the West Indies, the hills
or mountains of which are crowned with these curious-looking plants,
whose singular shapes are alone sufficient to remind the traveller that
he has reached an American coast; for these Cactuses are as peculiar a
feature of the New World as the Heaths are in the Old, or as Eucalypti
are in Australia.

Although the Cactus order is, in its distribution by Nature, limited to
the regions of America, yet it is now represented in various parts of
the Old World by plants which are apparently as wild and as much at home
as when in their native countries.

The Indian Figs are, perhaps, the most widely distributed of Cactuses in
the Old World-a circumstance due to their having been introduced for the
sake of their edible fruits, and more especially for the cultivation of
the cochineal insect. In various places along the shores of the
Mediterranean, and in South Africa, and even in Australia, the Opuntias
have become naturalised, and appear like aboriginal inhabitants. It is,
however, only in warm sunny regions that the naturalisation of these
plants is possible.

From these facts, we are able to form some general idea of the
conditions suitable for Cactuses when cultivated in our greenhouses;
for, although we seldom have, or care to have, any but diminutive
specimens of many of these plants as compared with their appearance when
wild, yet we know that the same conditions as regards heat, light, and
moisture are necessary for small Cactuses as for full-grown ones.

Although the places in which Cactuses naturally abound are, for the
greater portion of the year, very dry and warm, heavy rains are more or
less frequent during certain periods, and these, often accompanied by
extreme warmth and bright sunshine, have an invigorating and almost
forcing effect on the growth of Cactuses. It is during this rainy period
that the whole of the growth is made, and new life is, as it were, given
to the plant, its reservoir-like structure enabling it to store up a
large amount of food and moisture, so that on the return of dry weather
the safety of the plant is insured.

It is to the management of Cactuses in a small state, such as is most
convenient for our plant-houses, and not to the cultivation of those
colossal species referred to above, that the instructions given here
will be for the most part devoted; but, as in the case of almost every
one of our cultivated plants, it is important to the cultivator to know
something of the conditions which Nature has provided for Cactuses in
those lands where they are native.

There is nothing in the nature or the requirements of Cactuses that
should render their successful management beyond the means of anyone who
possesses a small, heated greenhouse, or even a window recess to which
sunlight can be admitted during some portion of the day. In large
establishments, such as Kew, it is possible to provide a spacious house
specially for the cultivation of an extensive collection, where many of
them may attain a good size before becoming too big. And it will be
evident that where a house such as that at Kew can be afforded, much
more satisfactory results may generally be obtained, than if plants have
to be provided for in a house containing various other plants, or in the
window of a dwelling-room. Apart altogether from size, it is, however,
possible to grow a collection of Cactuses, and to grow them well, in a
house of small dimensions--given the amount of sunlight and heat which
are required by these plants. We sometimes see Cactuses--specimens,
too, of choice and rare kinds--which have been reared in a cottager's
window or in a small greenhouse, and which in health and beauty have at
least equalled what has been accomplished in the most elaborately
prepared houses. It may be said that these successes, under conditions
of the most limited kind, are accidental rather than the result of
properly understood treatment; but however they have been brought about,
these instances of good cultivation are sufficient to show that success
is possible, even where the means are of the simplest or most restricted
kind. Whether it be in a large house, fitted with the best arrangements,
or in the window of the cottager, the conditions essential to the
successful cultivation of Cactuses are practically the same.

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