Pereskia

PERESKIA. Plum. Nov. Gen. 37. tab. 26. Cactus. Lin. Gen. Plant. 539. Gooseberry, vulgò.
 

The CHARACTERS are,
It hath a Rose-shaped flower consisting of several leaves, which are placed orbicularly, whose cup afterward becomes a soft, fleshy, globular fruit beset with leaves. In the middle of the fruit are many flat roundish seeds included in mucilage.

We have but one SPECIES of this plant, viz.

  • PERESKIA (Aculeata) aculeata, flore albo, fructu flavascente. Plum. Nov. Gen. 37. Prickly Pereskia with a white flower, and a yellowish fruit. Cactus caule tereti arboreo spinoso, foliis lanceolato-ovatis. Lin. Hort. Upsal. 122. Cactus with a taper, tree-like, prickly stalk, and spear-shaped oval leaves.

This plant grows in some parts of the Spanish West-Indies, from whence it was brought to the English settlements in America, where it is called Gooseberry, and by the Dutch it is called Blad Apple. It hath many slender branches which will not support themselves, so must be supported by stakes, otherwise they will trail on whatever plants grow near them. These branches, as also the stem of the plant, are beset with long whitish spines, which are produced in tufts. The leaves are roundish, very thick, and succulent, and the fruit is about the size of a Walnut, having tufts of small leaves on it, and hath a whitish mucilaginous pulp.

It may be propagated by planting of the cuttings during any of the summer month: these cuttings should be planted in pots filled with fresh light earth, and plunged into a moderate hot-bed of tanners bark, observing to shade them from the sun in the heat of the day, as also to refresh them every third or fourth day with water. In about two month the cuttings will have made good roots, when they may be carefully taken out of the pots, and each planted into a separate pot filled with fresh earth, and then plunged into the hot-bed again, where they may remain during the summer season; but at Michaelmas, when the nights begin to be cold, they should be removed into the stove, and plunged into the bark-bed. During the winter season the plants must be kept warm, and should be watered twice a week; but in cold weather it should not be given in large quantities. In Summer they must have a large share of air, and must be more plentifully watered, but they should constantly remain in the stove; for though they will bear the open air in summer in an warm situation, yet they will make no progress if they are placed abroad; nor do they thrive near so well in the dry stove, as when they are plunged in the tan; so that the best way is to set them next a trellis, at the back of the tan-bed, to which their branches may be fastened, to prevent their trailing on other plants. This plant has not as yet produced either flowers or fruit in England, but as there are several plants pretty well grown in the gardens of the curious, we my expect some of them will flower in a short time.