CACTUS FAMILY 



(Cactaceoe) 



Peculiar, often grotesque, fleshy perennials, more or less 

 armed with bristles and spines, and rarely endowed with 

 leaves; easily recognized as a family, but individually often 

 very difficult to place in their proper species. There are 

 about 20 genera and 1,000 species, nearly all natives of Amer- 

 ica, especially Mexico, but many species are now naturalized 

 in the Old World, also. On the Pacific Coast they are con- 

 fined to the regions adjacent to Mexico. 



CHOLLA (pronounced cho'ya). (Opuntia Bemardina, En- 

 gelm.). A much branched plant with slender, cylindrical, 

 jointed stems, 2 to 6 feet high, the stout yellow spines barbed 

 at the tip and enclosed their whole length in a papery sheath 

 that slips off readily. Flowers greenish-yellow with a tinge of 

 red, an inch broad or a little more; blooming in late spring 

 and early summer on arid plains in Southern California. 



There are numerous species of the cylindrical-jointed 

 Opuntias in the Southwest, and in a general way the Mexican 

 name Cholla is applied to all, in contradistinction to the flat- 

 jointed species which are called Tuna-cactus or Nopal. 

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