THE CACTUS 131 



Mention was made in a previous chapter of 

 certain cases in which an individual cactus slab 

 that was practically without spines might de- 

 velop other slabs that would be spiny. This 

 could only occur, however, in case the slab in 

 question was an individual variant which owed 

 its lack of spines to some local condition of altered 

 nutrition. 



A slab growing as a part of a plant that is 

 spineless throughout will produce only spine- 

 less plants, with the exception of very rare bud 

 sports which appear on all plants from time 

 to time. 



The case of the Opuntias in this regard is pre- 

 cisely comparable to that of the orchard trees 

 that are propagated by grafting. In each case 

 the entire crop of plants, although multiplied 

 until the offshoots of a single plant may cover 

 hundreds or thousands of acres, really constitutes 

 essentially one plant with divided personality, 

 rather than successive generations of plants. 



SPINELESS CACTUS FROM THE SEED 



Yet the important question has arisen as to 

 what will take place when the transplanted 

 Opuntias, once they have come to populate the 

 arid places, produce fruit, and scatter their seeds. 

 The answer is that no bad results will ensue. 



