A BOTANICAL MIRACLE.

Evening Star, Issue 11153, 31 January 1900, Page 6

A BOTANICAL MIRACLE.

An amusing an instructive article in 'Pearson's Magazine,' by Mr H. G. Shelley, deals with the cactus plant—perhaps the most wonderful and extra ordinary member of the entire vegetable kingdom. As the writer truly remarks: " A plant that will furnish you with a tooth-pick or a- pint of water; that will thrive on a diet of rotten eggs, and transmute those odoriferous castaways into dainty perfumes; that has. no leaves, and will sometimes turn the scale at a ton weight: that blossoms often in the dark hours of midnight, and can subsist without moisture for months at a stretch: that can protect itself from the hoofs of wild horses, and suck nutriment out. of hard rocks: that will sometimes reach to a height of 70ft, and anon may be covered with a thimble, that will provide you with a boiler for culinary purposes, or surround your estate with a hedge impervious to man and beast; that will live for centuries and yet bear blossoms that fade in a few fleeting hours; that can transform an honest man into a thief by the sheer force of its weird fascination—such a plant is surely entitled to be treated with respect." After describing various specimens of cacti, the writer continues: " With but one or two exceptions, they all belong to the New World, and the regions where they thrive best are those, where no rain falls for three-fourths of the year. Each plant has its own reservoir in which it can store up moisture against the long months of parching drought, and these reservoirs are so constructed that the water inside lasts from one rainy season to the next. " The cactus is the vegetable camel of the desert. On the stony, sandy plains of Mexico, and Texas, and California, the traveller is startled by these grotesque plants, some of them ' like petrified giants stretching out their arms in speechless pain, whilst others stand like lonely sentinels keeping their dreary watch on the edge of precipices.' " Xo other sign of vegetation is visible far and wide; each plant, each green leaf, has withered to dust in the scorching sun. But these shapeless plants, bristling with spine*, like (ho fretful porcupine, defy the glare, cf the svm, and keep their surprising verdure in spite of the rainless heavens. " They need all their formidable armor now. Hungry and thirsty animals roam these arid plains for food and drink, and with their strong hoofs they try to uproot the tempting cacti" preparatory to a meal on the juicy tissue of their unarmed lower parts; or, oblivious of the threatening spines, they do their best to split the plants open, and so increase their misery with dangerous wounds."