CACTUS LAKES 



BY FRANK COYNE 



CACTUS growing in standing water ! Cactus, the one 

 plant above all others associated by the layman with 

 the desert. Yet here are vast expanses of forests of 

 cactus growing in standing water, with here and there 

 little islands appearing but slightly above the general level. 

 Certainly, a remarkable phenomenon to one familiar with 

 the cactus in its normal habitat. Through our great dry 

 West great areas of desert land, whether in the Mojave 

 desert in the California-Arizona section, or in the Great- 

 Basin and Western Colorado Plateau country of Nevada 

 and Utah, one will find cactus growing in its typical zero- 

 phytic habitat, on the driest of soils, together with its 

 frequent associate greasewood and sagebrush. 



Down in the Dutch West Indies on the island of Cura- 

 cao, just off the Venezuelan coast, is the site of these pic- 

 tures. To the blacks living here in their little thatched 

 huts and content to earn a living on a few acres of maize, 

 cactus is perhaps the most common plant, and quite a 

 factor in their lives. It furnishes practically all the ma- 

 terial for their fences or hedges ; the housewife in the morn- 

 ing throws the washing at the windward side of the cactus 

 fence to dry (and more than one indignant traveler and 

 tourist has pondered over the sight of holes in his palm- 

 beach suit or shirt) ; and perhaps at "medio-dia" she cuts 

 a few of the tender tips from her fence and washline for 

 soup! I've actually seen goats grazing on the species 

 shown in the pictures, whose spines are anywhere from 

 one to five inches long. And let it be remembered 

 that the species eaten by the goats is not the "spine- 

 less Burbank cactus." 



Five species of cactus are found here on the island, and 

 to botanists the names of Cereus, Opuntia, and Melocactus 

 will be familiar. Cereus, the species seen in the picture, 

 and called by the natives "Dattoe, " in their " Papia- 



mento" language (which is a patois of French, English, 

 Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese) , is the most common and 

 is to the thatched-hut dwellers here, in its diversity of uses, 

 what blubber is to the Esquimau in his igloo. 



In Curacao this species grows on all soil formations and 

 at all elevations, from the beach lapped by the Caribbean 

 to the top of the highest peak, St. Christoffelberg. On the 



THE FOREST OF CACTI 



General appearance of cactus forest on the Hato Plains after heavy tropical 

 shower; Curacao, Dutch West Indies. 



hill-tops one finds it associated with Brazil-wood and Lig- 

 num Vitas, where lazy iguanas lie in the branches of the 

 trees and where tiny chameleons run along the branches 

 and trunk of the Wajaaka. 



But what a strange anomaly ! In Utah the Sego lily, a 

 desert flower, and the cactus grow side by side, while here 

 in Curacao on some of the driest sites are found orchids 

 growing in profusion on cactus, and in other localities 

 cactus, in standing water, where one might naturally expect 

 waving cocoanut palms in the place of the defiant spiny 

 cactus , which in many places attains the height of twenty 

 feet and extends in unbroken stretches along the north 

 coast for manv miles. 



A CACTUS LAKE 



This unique photograph shows part of the forest of cactus growing in standing water in the Dutch West Indies a most remarkable thing to see when one has 

 been accustomed to associating this plant with driest of desert surroundings, but we must admit that it is only a temporary condition. 



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