I 86 PLANT WORLD. 



and an account of them has been giv^en by Maiden In the 



Agnciiltural Gazette for Ne-zv South Wales, Vol. IX., p. 



I002, 1899. 



Proclaimed for the whole State, P'ebruary, 1907." 

 This species of Opiintia is from South America and has 



long been a serious pest in Australia, but experiments being 



made in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona suggest that if 

 proper methods of burning the spines were used the Austral- 

 ians might find in this dangerous weed a valuable supply of 

 forage. 



BOTANY IN THE MAGAZINES. 



The languid indifterence on the part of editors of popu- 

 lar magazines to facts in natural history has received another 

 ludicrous exemplification in an article on the "Rootless Cactus 

 of California," by Harry H. Dunn in the Terhii'nal JVorld 

 for July, 1908. Mr. Dunn's botanical effort reads as 

 follows : 



"Curious among vegetable growths of the new world, 

 and one which is seldom seen of men, is the rootless cactus of 

 the California desert. This plant, a round, compact growth, 

 rolls about the level floor of the desert for some eight or 

 nine months of the year, tossed hither and yon by the winds 

 which blow with fierceness over all of California's sand plat 

 during those months. 



At the coming of the rains, or rather, the cloudbursts, 

 which sweep the desert in its springtime, this cactus takes 

 root, where\'er it happens to ha\-e been dropped by the last 

 wind of which it was the plaything and immediately begins 

 to put out all around it small shoots, which in turn become 

 cacti, exactly like the parent plant. 



These young growths increase in size rapidly, sucking 

 the moisture both from the parent plant and from the sur- 

 rounding earth. The roots do not penetrate the soil deeply, 

 but spread often over a circle whose radius is not less than 



