CACTACEAE (CACTUS FAMILY) 



289 



FIG. 202. Prickly 

 Pear (Opuntia Raphi- 

 u). Xi 



few spines or a single strong one, sometimes none. Flowers yellow, 

 sometimes with a reddish center, nearly three inches broad, the 

 many petals slightly united at base, the stamens very numerous, 

 the style with two- to seven-parted stigma ; ovary inferior or 

 below the flower and one-celled. Fruit a 

 thick club-shape, nearly two inches long, not 

 spiny, with a fleshy purplish pulp, edible, 

 with an insipid or slightly acid taste. 



Means of control 



Prickly Pear may be killed by burning, as 

 stockmen of the arid lands discovered when 

 removing the spines for the benefit of their 

 cattle, especially if the work is done with 

 a gasoline torch applied to the growing 

 plants. On land capable of supporting 

 better growths cultivation and liberal fer- 

 tilization of the ground should be the 

 method used for suppression of the prickly 

 pest, reseeding heavily with some of the most drought-resistant 

 grasses and clovers. 



BRITTLE PRICKLY PEAR 

 Opuntia frdgilis, Haw. 



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

 broken joints. 



Time of bloom: June to August. 



Seed-time: July to September. 



Range : Minnesota to British Columbia, southward to Utah, Colo- 

 rado, and Kansas. 



Habitat : Dry soil ; prairies, rocky foothills. 



Plants rather small, partly prostrate, the joints very numerous 

 and breaking away so readily that they often attach themselves to 

 animals by their many spines and are thus transported to new lo- 

 calities. Joints small, only one or two inches long, roundly ovate 

 or club-like, slightly flattened, the fruit-bearing ones rather more 

 compressed. Leaves small, red, awl-like, soon falling away; the 

 tiny protuberances in the axils white- woolly, bearing a cluster of 



