Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
Do you need
volunteer, community service, work, military or court hours?
|
|
Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
|
|
Click here and add this page to your favorites!
|
Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MAL-MAR |
|
|
MAMMILLARIA .-ThiS genus, which comprises nearly 300 species, mostly Mexican, with a few Brazilian and West Indian, is called nipple cactus, and consists of globular or cylindrical succulent plants, whose surface instead of being cut up into ridges with alternate furrows, as in Melocactus, is broken up into teat-like cylindrical or angular tubercles, spirally arranged, and terminating in a radiating tuft of spines which spring from a little woolly cushion. The flowers
pink
EcxnNOCACTUS (fig. 2) is the name given to the genus bearing the popular name of hedgehog cactus. It comprises some 200 species, distributed from the south-west United States to Brazil and Chile. They have the fleshy stems characteristic of the order, these being either globose, oblong or cylin- drical, and either ribbed as in Melocactus, or broken up into distinct tubercles, and most of them armed with stiff sharp
flowers
been in some cases computed at FIG. 2.Echinocctus much upwards of 50,000 on a single reduced; the flowers are several plant. These spines are used by inches in diameter .the Mexicans as toothpicks. The plants are slow growers and must have plenty of sun heat; they require sandy loam with a mixture of sand and bricks finely broken and must be kept dry in winter. CEREUs.This group bears the common name of torch thistle. It comprises about too species, largely Mexican but scattered through South America and the West Indies. The sterns are colum nar or elongated, some of the latter creeping on the ground or climbing up the trunks of trees, rooting as they grow. C. giganteus, the largest and most striking species of the genus, is a native of hot, arid, desert regions of New Mexico
appearance of telegraph poles. The stems grow to a height of from 50 ft. to 6o ft., and have a diameter of from t ft. to 2 ft., often unbranched, but sometimes furnished with brancheswhich grow out at right angles from the main stem, and then curve upwards and continue their growth parallel to it; these stems have from twelve to twenty ribs, on which at intervals of about an inch are the buds with their thick yellow cushions, from which issue five or six large and numerous smaller spines. The fruits of this plant, which are green oval bodies from 2 to 3 in. long, contain a crimson pulp from which the Pimos and Papagos Indians prepare an excellent preserve; and they also use the ripe fruit as an article of food, gathering it by means of a forked stick attached to a long pole. The Cereuses include some of our most interesting and beautiful hothouse plants. In the allied genus Echinocereus, with 25 to 30 species in North and South America, the stems are short, branched or simple, divided into few or many ridges all armed with sharp
End of Article: MAMMILLARIA If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/MAL_MAR/MAMMILLARIA.html"> MAMMILLARIA </a> |
|
|
(Previous) MAMMEE APPLE, SOUTH AMERICAN |
(Next) MAMMON |
|
Sponsored Advertisements