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Show 328 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. Mexico, upwards of 4 English feet high, is above 3 English feet diameter, and weighs from 700 to 2000 lbs. : while Cactus nanus, which we found near Sondorillo, in the province of J aen, is so small that, being only slightly rooted in the sand, it gets between the toes of dogs. The Melocactuses, which are full of juice in the dryest seasons like the Ravanela of Madagascar (forest-leaf in the language of the country, from rave, 1·aven, a leaf, and ala, the Javanese halas, (a forest), are vegetable fountains; and the manner in which the horses and mules stamp them open with their hoofs, at the risk of injury from the spines, has been already mentioned (vol. i. p. 19). Since the last quarter of a century Cactus opuntia has extended itself in a remarkable manner into Northern Africa, Syria, Greece, and the whole of the south of Europe; even penetrating, in Africa, from the coasts far into the interior of the country, and associating itself with the indigenous plants. When one has been accustomed to see Cactuses only in our hothouses, one is astonished at the degree of density and hardness which the ligneous fibres attain in old cactus stems. The Indians know that cactus wood is incorruptible, and excellent for oars and for the thresholds of doors. There is hardly anything in vegetable physiognomy which makes so singular and ineffaceable an impression on a newly arrived person, as the sight of an arid plain thickly covered, like those near Cumana, New Barcelona, and Coro, and in the province of J a~n de Bracamoros, with columnar and candelabra-like divided cactus stems. e1) p. 24.-" 01·chidere." The a,lmost animal shape of blossoms of Orchidere is particularly striking in the celebrated Tori to of South America (our Anguloa grandiflora); in the Mosquito (our Restrepia antennifera); in the Flor del Espiritu Santo (also an Anguloa, according to Florre Peruvianre Prodrom. p. 118, tab. 26); in the ant-like flower of the Chiloglottis cornuta (Rooker, Flora antarctica, p. 69); in the Mexican Bletia speciosa; and in the highly curious host of our European species of Ophrys: 0. muscifera, 0. apifera, 0. aranifera, 0. arachnites, &c. A predilection for this superbly flowering group of plants has so increased, that the number cultivated in Europe by |