288 CACTACEAE (CACTUS FAMILY) 



many seeds borne on its inner wall surface in three groups. 

 (Fig. 201.) 



Mean-s of control 



Very thorough tillage of cultivated crops, destroying as much 

 as possible of the perennial roots ; alternate such cultivation with 

 heavy seeding to cowpeas or clover. 



PRICKLY PEAR 



Opuntia Rafinesquii, Engelm. 

 (Opiintia humifiisa, Raf.) 



Other English names: Indian Fig, Old Man's Hands. 



Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds and by the rooting of 



broken joints. 



Time of bloom: June to August. 

 Seed-time: July to September. 

 Range: Ohio, Michigan, and Minnesota, southward to Kentucky, 



Missouri, and Texas. 

 Habitat : Dry soil ; rocky hills and pastures. 



In the arid lands of the Southwest, Prickly Pear is hardly to be 

 considered a weed, for there it is singed of its spines and furnishes 

 an emergency food for stock during the season of drought when other 

 forage is unavailable. But cattle prefer grasses to cactus and in 

 ground where the better forage can be made to grow the cactus 

 should be suppressed. If, under stress of hunger, the plant is 

 eaten by stock without the removal of the spines, they often pene- 

 trate or lacerate the intestines, or sometimes form interlaced prickly 

 masses or phytobezoars which close the passage and cause death. 

 (Fig. 202.) 



This is a variable species, but is usually prostrate and spread- 

 ing, its roots often tuberous, and all joints are capable of rooting 

 at the lower margins, forming new plants. Joints usually about 

 two to six inches long and two to four inches wide, sometimes 

 twice as large, deep green, thick, fleshy, obovate to rounded, bear- 

 ing when young a few awl-shaped leaves that soon fall away ; in 

 the axil of each leaf is a small rounded elevation, usually some- 

 what woolly, bearing a cluster of reddish brown bristles and a 



