An erect, stout-stemmed plant, with flattened, green joints, about 5 in. long by 3 in. wide.    From Wordnik.com.  [Cactus Culture for Amateurs Being Descriptions of the Various Cactuses Grown in This Country, With Full and Practical Instructions for Their Successful Cultivation] Reference

Everything is sacrificed to the practical principle of keeping life together, and it is not until these stout-stemmed plants are cultivated and duly sheltered and watered, and can grow, as it were, with confidence, that they are able to do justice to the inherent beauty of penciled petal and veined leaf.    From Wordnik.com.  [Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 17, No. 098, February, 1876] Reference