A name for a columnar cactus of the genus Cereus.
1731–3. Miller, Gard. Dict., s.v. Cereus, The Torch-Thistle. Call’d Cereus, because it is, as it were, a kind of taper or torch … because when these plants have been cut down and dry’d upon the ground, they dip them into oil, and burn them as torches. Ibid., s.v. Greenhouse, Euphorbiums, Torch-Thistles, and other tender succulent Plants.
1753. Hogarth, Anal. Beauty, viii. 44. The indian-fig or torch-thistle,… as well as all that tribe of uncouth shaped exotics.
1884. Miller, Plant-n., 177. Cereus, Torch-thistle.
