are set in clusters in a cushion of whitish wool, the longest being about 3 in. in length, with curved or slightly hooked points, and distinctly angular.  The flowers are 2 in. long, bell-shaped; the petals shining lemon-yellow, with a tinge of brown on the outside, whilst the sepals are like a number of fish-scales, overlapping each other down the outside of the campanulate tube.  The stamens and pistil are almost hidden inside the flower.  Flowers are borne by quite young plants, whilst upon full-grown specimens they are so numerous as to form a large yellow cap to the immense, prickly, conical stems.  They are developed in August and September.  A native of Mexico, where it is found wild on the rocky or gravelly plains and ravines, and often in crevices of perpendicular rocks.  It requires warm greenhouse treatment, and plenty of water during the summer, care being taken that the soil it is planted in is perfectly drained.

[Illustration:  Fig. 38.—­Echinocactus Le Contei.]

E. Leeanus (Lee’s); Bot.  Mag. 4184.—­This species has many characters in common with E. hexaedrophorus and E. gibbosus, the stem being no larger than a small orange, with plump globose tubercles, bearing star-shaped clusters of short brown spines.  The flowers are 11/2 in. long and wide, and are composed of a green fleshy tube, with a few whitish scales, which gradually enlarge till, with the white, rose-tipped petals, they form a spreading cup, the large cluster of pale yellow stamens occupying the whole of the centre.  This pretty little Cactus was raised from seeds by Messrs. Lee, of the Hammersmith Nursery, in 1840.  It is a native of the Argentine Provinces, and flowers in May.  The treatment recommended for E. gibbosus will be found suitable for this.  It is happiest when grafted on to another kind.  For the amateur whose plants are grown in a room window or small plant-case, these tiny Hedgehog Cactuses are much more suitable than larger kinds, as they keep in health under ordinary treatment, and flower annually; whereas, the larger kinds, unless grown in properly-constructed houses, rarely blossom.

E. longihamatus (long-hooked); Fig. 39.—­We heartily wish all species of Cactaceous plants were as readily distinguished and as easily defined in words as in the present remarkably fine and handsome one—­remarkable in the very prominent ridges, the large and regularly-arranged spines, the central one very long, flattened, and usually hooked at the end, and handsome in the size and colouring of its flowers, both in the bud and when fully expanded.  The stem is globose, 8 in. or more high; it has about thirteen prominent rounded ridges with waved tumid edges, from which, about 11/2 in. apart, spring clusters of spines, about a dozen in each cluster, dark red when young, becoming brown with age.  In length, these spines vary from 1 in. to 6 in., the latter being the length of the central, hooked one, which is broad