In one of the cultivated gardens of Northern Mexico we are introduced by the hospitable natives (half Mexican, half Spanish), to that weird and striking growth, the _Cereus serpentinus_, known also in the realm of botany as _Nyctocereus serpentinus_. Any one of its long sinuous tentacles, the six to fifteen entangled stems, might easily remind one of the twisted body of a serpent springing at its intended victim! This is a Night Blooming Cereus cactus, supposed to be a native of eastern Mexico, where it grows half wild in hedges and over walls, but its habitat is uncertain. The stems, eight to fifteen feet long, grow erect for about ten feet, and then bend over or are pendent for several feet; on top of the ridges running along them are clusters of slender spreading cream-white and reddish brown spines, flexible and not stiff like those of most cacti. [Illustration: NIGHT BLOOMING CEREUS; GODDESS OF THE NIGHT; LA REINA DE NOCHE; THE QUEEN OF NIGHT (Cereus Greggii)] 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 flower queen come forth into bloom, scenting the warm sweet air of the desert land for miles and miles, while thousands of people, Indian and white, gather for the brilliant spectacle of hundreds of thousands of waxy white blossoms. Then no more may the eye of man behold the lovely colorings, nor sense the exotic perfume of the Goddess of the Night, until her appointed time comes yet again in the Desert Land of Plants and Flowers. [Illustration: SAHUARO OR GIANT CACTUS (Cereus giganteus); AND PALO VERDE] The noble “Sage of the Desert,” towering fifty feet into the air, oldest and largest of the American Cacti, often attaining the age of two hundred and fifty years, entwining with the Palo Verde.