Two to eight feet in height, the blackish green angular grotesque stems bearing the lovely flower queen, almost like a crooked stick or dead snake in their fantastic appearance, form a strange contrast to the ethereal beauty and fragrance of her blossoms. Often mistaken for a dead stick, these loosely branched and densely fine hairy stems of the Cereus Greggii are rarely noticed on the desert; but we who are fortunate enough to have a guide can perceive that the thin half-inch base of the trunk is narrower here than a few inches higher up, almost like the slim neck of a snake. Each slender trunk consists of a central woody core one-fourth inch in diameter, covered by a series of furrows to draw up the moisture which is stored in the fleshy beetlike root, weighing fifty to a hundred pounds and buried deep in the ground where it forms a reservoir of water and food lasting for more than two years. Thus, rain or shine, the delicate flower goddess may bring forth her lovely blossoms at their appointed time. Then too, Nature has provided her favorite with finely barbed, stout stiff hairy spines, about one-eighth inch long, growing on the areola so as to resemble a small insect of the desert.
The flowers are from seven to ten inches long and about six inches across, with a delightfully spicy fragrance, which at times is quite strong. The colorings of the Greggii are a wondrous harmony of tint and hue. The background of color forms a corona of waxy white and rich creamy yellow that looks as if it had been chiseled out of a rare old marble, with no duplicate in all the world; shading beautifully into the white of the petals, with their hint of pale lavender diffused throughout with touches of tan and pink; sepals and petals recurving into a graceful cornucopia.
It is no wonder that Indians and Mexicans revere their lovely “Queen of Night,” Reina de Noche, or that, across the sea in Honolulu, a grand celebration marks the opening of the blossoms of the Hawaiian variety, which occurs but once a year! During Queen Liliuokalani’s reign many were the ceremonies to Pau on occasions of the flowering of the Night Blooming Cereus.
You must come to the desert in the soft shadows of the moonlit night to see the ethereal beauty of this rare and exquisite flower. For only one night in each year does the Cereus Greggii come forth into bloom, scenting the warm sweet air of the desert land for miles and miles with poignant fragrance. When the shadows begin to lengthen and the deepening glow of sunset approaches, the satiny blossoms begin to open (having already loosened and expanded); in an hour or so they are fully opened, and as one stands watching them curiously one can actually see them moving and lifting from minute to minute, the petals seeming to tremble, so forcibly is Nature causing them to expand. One can detect the lovely fragrance as soon as the blooms start to unfold. During the night thousands of people, Indian and white, gather for the brilliant spectacle of hundreds of thousands of waxy white blossoms; others celebrate in the popular fiestas of the Southwest in old Mexico, or the luaus of far-away Hawaii. At sunrise of the day following, or shortly thereafter, the goddess flowers begin to fold, and by nine or ten o’clock on a cloudless morning they are entirely closed. No more may the eye of man behold the lovely colorings, nor sense the exquisite perfume of the Goddess of the Night, until her appointed time comes yet again in the Desert Land of Plants and Flowers.
And now the parade of the Desert’s Fashion Show is over and night is closing in. But if you wish to see the real show and to appreciate the real beauties of the desert land in flower-time, you must go into the silent sandy wastes when the sun is gone and the moon is coming over the mountains, spreading its gossamer silvery sheen over the floor of the desert in crazy shadow-patch, and watch the blossoms come slowly open, one by one, to receive the kiss of the night dew and the gentle caress of the newborn breeze. For you have not looked upon matchless beauty nor sensed the sweetest perfume, till you have been out there in the great alone, where Beauty comes and fades and dies, and is born again in the ceaseless tide of God’s evolution of men and things, in the great Eternity of Being.
HOW TO GROW CACTI
In general cacti like warm or hot sunny southern exposures; they grow best in sandy, gravelly, or rocky loam or clay soils, according to the habits of the species; they succeed best with good drainage, a moderate or limited rainfall or a limited amount of moisture in the soil. They should have occasional dry periods to harmonize growth with their original desert habitats, and also all the summer heat possible. This produces the contracted growth characteristic of cacti with all their desert beauty and symmetry of colors and arrangement of spines, and their fine large showy flowers. Cacti do best in regions of limited rainfall and maximum sunshine, blazing-hot summers, and mild winters where the temperatures keep well above zero.
The bad effects of heavy rainfall can be overcome largely by including in the soil a large proportion of sand or gravel or cobblestones and by growing the plants on ridges or raised borders. The effects of fog and extreme humidity can be corrected somewhat by growing them in dry conservatories. Where the temperatures fall below the lowest temperatures given in the section on “How to Grow” for each species, cacti must be grown in warm greenhouses in winter and preferably throughout the year—with the exception of the hedgehog cacti, which rarely grow successfully in greenhouses. With the specific information given under the heading “How to Grow” for each species, it is possible to grow cacti successfully in the tropics and over a large part of the temperate zone. The important things are: warm sunshine, protection from too low temperatures, the right kind of soil, and limited watering or irrigation.
LOCATIONS FOR CULTIVATION
Cacti may be grown out of doors in the entire southwestern section of the United States, in Mexico, Central America, and South America (except the southern part), where the temperatures are never colder than fifteen to twenty-five degrees below freezing. Also, they can be grown successfully out of doors in parts of Spain and Portugal, and in the region immediately bordering the Mediterranean Sea, over much of Africa lying at the lower altitudes, in Arabia, Persia, India, southern China, extreme southern Japan, and the northern half of Australia, in addition to the islands of the Pacific, nearly all of which lie between the 33° parallels, north and south (except where the temperatures are modified by mountains or other natural features).