The Cactus Club Killings (Joe Portugal) (36 page)
Read The Cactus Club Killings (Joe Portugal) Online
Authors: Nathan Walpow
I adopted Brenda’s birds. She’d entrusted them to my care while she was gone, and now that she was gone forever I felt it appropriate to take them under my wing. I built a big
floor-to-ceiling enclosure for them in my parents’ bedroom, where they get plenty of air and light and seed and everything else canaries like. I threw Muck and Mire in with the Marx Brothers contingent, and they all get along famously.
I called Iris Bunche. We met for iced tea at Jimmy’s on the UCLA campus and convinced ourselves that something was going on, so we went out on a real date. Then several more, but after a few weeks the relationship was called off due to mutual lack of interest.
In early July I got a letter from Amanda Belinski, thanking me for bringing her sister’s murderer to justice. On a muggy Sunday evening a month later, I picked up the phone and gave her a call. Her machine answered. I didn’t leave a message.
to Botanical Nomenclature
E
VERYONE’S ALWAYS ASKING ME THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
a succulent and a cactus. It’s pretty simple. A succulent is any plant with leaves, stems, or roots containing water-storing tissue. A cactus is a member of a particular family of stem succulents, Cactaceae, defined by flower characteristics and the presence of areoles, special spots on the stem from which spines, flowers, and new branches grow. (More about plant families a bit later.)
Nearly all cacti are succulent, but not all succulents are cacti. When you hear someone talking about “cacti and succulents,” its kind of like saying “pizza and food.” It really should be “cacti and other succulents,” but if you start insisting on stuff like that, people think you’re a pain in the neck.
I’ve been using “cacti” as the plural of “cactus,” which is the most common usage. But you’ll also hear people refer to their collections as “my cactus,” or even “my cactuses,” and nobody harangues them about it.
Cacti are native to the New World, with a couple of dubious exceptions found in Madagascar and Sri Lanka. The other succulents occur all over the world but are especially prevalent in Africa.
Okay. On to plant families. All plants in each family have certain characteristics in common, sometimes things like the structure of the flower and fruit, sometimes esoteric stuff understood only by botanists. Lets consider Rosaceae, the rose family. Besides roses it includes many common fruits, ranging from apples to strawberries. To a botanist all these plants are cousins.
Families are broken up into genera, one of which is a genus. The plants in each of these have more in common with each other than with others in their family. Back to Rosaceae: within it, apples are in the genus
Mains
and strawberries in
Fragaria
. But all the stone fruits, like peaches and plums and almonds, are in
Prunus
. Why? Similarities in their seeds, among other things.
Next we come to the species. The word is both singular and plural, although occasionally you’ll hear somebody talking about a “specie.” Try not to make fun of them. A species is one particular type of plant, like a white oak or a golden barrel cactus or a daffodil. The scientific name for a species consists of two words, the genus and the specific name. So the peach is
Prunus persica
, and the plum is
P. salicina
or
P. domestica
, depending on whether it’s Japanese or European. (When it’s clear which genus you’re dealing with, you can reduce its name to the initial letter, as I did here.)
Just one more level, I promise: the variety. It’s a further subdivision of a species. For example, the nectarine,
Prunus persica nucipersica
, is, to a botanist, a variety of the peach.
Family names (which always end in -aceae) are capitalized. So are genus names, when they refer to the genus as a whole or are part of the scientific name. Genera and scientific names are printed in italics. Thus, “I collect the genus
Euphorbia
. My favorite is
Euphorbia milii”
But when a genus or species name is used because a plant lacks a common
name, it’s neither capitalized nor italicized. “I have a lot of euphorbias. The miliis are my favorites.”
Now on to the plants mentioned in
The Cactus Club Killings
, alphabetized for your convenience:
Aeonium lindleyi
is a leaf succulent native to the Canary Islands. It forms small green rosettes and is a remedy for contact with euphorbia sap.
Agave
is a genus of leaf succulents, mostly from Mexico. Its where tequila comes from. A lot of people see the spines on its leaves and call it a cactus. It’s not.
Alluaudia
is covered under Didieriaceae.
Boweia volubilis
, known as the “climbing onion,” isn’t really a succulent, but its weird behavior appeals to collectors. It’s a member of the lily family and sends out long leafless stems from onionlike bulbs.
Cephalocereus senilis
, from Mexico, is one of several plants known as the “old man cactus,” due to its blanket of long white hair.
Ceropegia
is a genus in the milkweed family, mostly from the Old World, which indulges in all sorts of weird growth forms. Its flowers resemble miniature parachutes.
Cyphostemma
comes from Africa and is a member of the grape family. It forms a fat caudex—a water-storing central stem—and has peeling bark and red fruits similar to grapes. But don’t eat them.
Didieriaceae
is a small family of plants with marginally succulent stems that inhabit the thorn forest of Madagascar. It includes the genera
Alluaudia
and
Didieria
.
Dracaena draco
, known as the dragon tree, is native to the Canary Islands. It grows to twenty feet high and wide and has dagger-shape leaves. Not really a succulent, but spectacular.
Dudleya
is a genus of leaf succulents from Mexico and the west coast of the U.S. Its leaves are usually pale green.
Epiphyllum
refers to two groups of plants. The first is a genus of jungle cacti with flat, leaflike stems. Their white flowers appear in
the evening and last only one night. The name is also used for the thousands of hybrids of this genus with other cactus genera, with spectacular flowers in every color but blue.
Euphorbia
contains thousands of species, some succulent and some not, ranging from tiny garden spurges to huge trees. Its growth forms vary wildly, but all euphorbias share a very simple flower type, known as a cyathium. The white (occasionally yellow) sap that seeps from wounded euphorbias is always an irritant and in some species is quite caustic. In the tale related here, we encounter:
Euphorbia abdelkuri
, a strange gray stem succulent from the island of Socotra;
E. ammak
, a strongly spined African species;
E. antisyphilitica
, a spindly stemmed plant from Mexico, named for its supposed medicinal properties;
E. flanaganii
, one of the medusa-head species from Africa, with a spherical central stem sprouting dozens of thin green arms;
E. francoisii
, a dwarf from Madagascar, with leaves in shades of green, pink, and silver;
E. grandicornis
, another African species, this one with long, vicious spines;
E. milii
, the “crown of thorns,” with semisucculent stems and blood-red flowers, native to Madagascar;
E. obesa
, aptly described by its common name “baseball plant,” yet another African species;
E. pachypodioides
, a spindle-shaped Madagascan plant topped by a crown of oval leaves;
E. pulcherrima
, originally from Mexico, the poinsettia;
E. restricta
, a small South African species with lots of spiny arms;
E. tirucalli
, from Africa, misleadingly known as the “pencil cactus,” with particularly nasty sap; and
E. viguieri
, a spiny Madagascan species with red or orange flowers.
Ferocactus
is a genus of strongly spined barrel cacti from Mexico and the southwest U.S.
Fockea
is an African genus in the milkweed family, characterized by a fat, water-storing caudex from which vinelike stems grow.
Hoya
is popularly known as the “wax plant.” Members of this Asian genus in the milkweed family are often grown as house plants because of their weird leaf forms and clusters of fragrant flowers.
Mammillaria
is the second-biggest cactus genus. Its two-hundred-plus species range from the U.S. to Venezuela but are highly concentrated in Mexico. It’s known as the “nipple cactus”
because its areoles are perched on conelike tubercles instead of along ribs as in most cacti.
Pachypodium
is a popular genus in the oleander family. Species include
P. brevicaule
, which resembles a well-aged cow pie in habitat;
P. decaryi
, with a stem shaped like a football; and
P. horombense
, whose caudex can reach the size of a watermelon. These are all native to Madagascar; other pachypodiums come from South Africa.
Pelargonium
, the genus that includes the garden geranium, also contains African species with succulent stems or tuberous roots. They’re winter growers and die in warm weather.
Pereskia
is the exception to the rule that all cacti are succulent. They’re leafy, woody plants that can form trees or gigantic vines. What makes them cacti? Flower characteristics and areoles.
Portulacaceae
is the purslane family. It includes one of the few annual succulents,
Portulaca grandiflora
, known as “rose moss” or “moss rose,” depending on which book you read. It’s related to neither moss nor roses. You wouldn’t guess it to look at its members, but botanically this is the family closest to the cacti.
Pseudolithos
is a rare genus in the milkweed family. They’re stem succulents from Africa.
Rhipsalis
are jungle cacti with pencillike or flattened, barely succulent stems. Their small white flowers give rise to berrylike fruits, often white; thus the common name “mistletoe cactus.”
Sansevieria
is a genus of borderline leaf succulents, including the “mother-in-law’s tongue” often found in homes and shopping malls. It’s been placed in various families by different authorities. Sansevierias come from Africa.
Sarcocaulon
is similar to the succulent pelargoniums, but its species have spines and somewhat different flowers. They, too, are winter growers.
Selenicereus macdonaldiae
comes from Central America. It’s a vining cactus whose white flowers last one night and are the largest among all the cacti, giving rise to the common name “queen of the night.”
Stapelianthus neronis
is an exceedingly rare Madagascan stem succulent in the milkweed family.
Of course, it’s difficult to visualize a plant from a couple of lines of description. If you’d like to see photos of some of the types mentioned in this book, and you’ve been seduced by the Internet, point your web browser to
http://walpow.com
, a site belonging to one of the other guys in the Culver City Cactus Club. Gina designed it, by the way. Part of her recent alarming streak of computer geekdom.
Published by
Dell Publishing
a division of
Random House, Inc.
1540 Broadway
New York, New York 10036
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1999 by Nathan Walpow
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
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eISBN: 978-0-307-57289-9
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