450 ANNUAL. REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 



hard pressed by hunger cattle will eat cactuses, spines and all, even 

 attacking the very spiny chollas. The joints of the chollas are readily 

 detached from the plants and are often seen clinging to the animals' 

 bodies. 



In some parts of the Southwest the young pads of the prickly pear 

 are prepared for human food, the tender joints being peeled and 

 cooked in various ways. They are not likely to become a popular 

 vegetable since they are nearly flavorless and their large amount of 

 mucilaginous matter is unpleasant to most people. The joints have 

 been used as poultices and their juice is occasionally employed in siz- 

 ing rough walls preparatory to the application of paper. 



The fruit of the prickly pear, known as the tuna (pi. 4, B), is highly 

 prized in Mexico, where it is gathered in great quantities. The lands 

 growing there have larger and more palatable fruits than any of the 

 New Mexican forms. Some of the northern species produce a dry 

 fruit consisting of little but spines and seeds, and consequently 

 inedible. Others of the tunas are large and juicy and beautifully col- 

 ored, but even they have large seeds. The fruit has a pleasant flavor 

 and a taste for it does not have to be acquired, as it must for so many 

 of the unusual tropical or semitropical fruits. Some of the other 

 cactuses have still better flavored fruits, best of all being those borne 

 by the different species of Echinocereus. In this genus the seeds are 

 small and can be eaten along with the pulp. In the earlier days, and 

 to some extent at the present time", the different cactus fruits were 

 gathered by the Indians, who ate the fresh ones either raw or cooked, 

 and often dried them in the sun for use in winter. The tunas are cov- 

 ered with very fine spines which must be removed, the Indians resort- 

 ing to small brushes of dried grass for the purpose. The Echinocereus 

 fruits, besides being much more finely flavored than the tunas, are 

 easier to eat because they are protected only by large spines that are 

 easily removed with the fingers when the fruit is fully ripe. 



Tunas have not been utilized extensively in New Mexico by recent 

 immigrants who often eat them when they happen upon ripe fruits 

 but seldom make any definite effort to gather them in quantity. 

 Sometimes they are collected and their juice extracted and used in 

 the preparation of jellies and sirups, the products thus obtained com- 

 paring favorably in flavor and appearance with any similar ones from 

 other fruits. It has been discovered that a valuable coloring matter, 

 a rich red similar to that of cochineal, can be extracted from them to 

 be used in tinting candies and pastry. The prickly pear, inciden- 

 tally, is often a host of the cochineal insect which in spring and early 

 summer often completely covers the plants with its white webs. 



In the southern part of New Mexico, on the mesas bordering the 

 Kio Grande, is one of the most remarkable cactuses, known as the fish- 

 hook or barrel cactus or viznaga (Ecliinocadus wislizeni, pi. 6, A). 



