Yellow and Orange 



found it "by the snowbank's edges cold," one April day, when 

 the hepaticas about his home at Roslyn, Long Island, had doubt- 

 less been in bloom a month. 



" Of all her train the hands of Spring 

 First plant thee in the watery mould," 



he wrote, regardless of the fact that the round-leaved violet's pref- 

 erences are for dry, wooded, or rocky hillsides. Muller believed 

 that all violets were originally yellow, not white, after they 

 evoluted from the green stage. (Illustration, p. 292.) 



Eastern Cactus; Prickly Pear; Indian Fig 



{Optmiia Opuntia) Cactus family 

 (O. vulgaris of Gray) 



Flowers — Yellow, sometimes reddish at centre, 2 to 3 in. across, 

 solitary, mostly seated at the side of joints. Calyx tube not 

 prolonged beyond ovary, its numerous lobes spreading. 

 Petals numerous; stamens very numerous; ovary cylindric; 

 the style longer than stamens, and with several stigmas. 

 Stem: Prostrate or ascending, fleshy, juicy, branching, the 

 thick, flattened joints oblong or rounded, 2 to 5 in. long. 

 Leaves : Tiny, awl-shaped, dotting the joints, but usually fall- 

 ing early ; tufts of yellowish bristles at their base. Plant un- 

 armed, or with few solitary stout spines. Fruit: Pear- 

 shaped, pulpy, red, nearly smooth, i in. long or over, edible. 



Preferred Habitat — Sandy or dry or rocky places. 



Flowering Seaso n — ^J une— August. 



Distribution — Massachusetts to Florida. 



Upwards of one hundred and fifty species of Opuntia, which 

 elect to grow in parching sands, beneath a scorching sun, often 

 prostrate on baking hot rocks, on glaring plains, beaches, and 

 deserts, from Massachusetts to Peru — for all are natives of the 

 New World — show so marvellous an adaptation to environment 

 in each instance that no group of plants is more interesting to the 

 botanist, more decorative in form and color from an artistic 

 standpoint, more distinctively characteristic. Plants choosing such 

 habitats as they have adopted, usually in tropical or semi-tropical 

 regions, had to resort to various expedients to save loss of water 

 through transpiration and evaporation. Now, as leaves are the 

 natural outlets for moisture thrown off by anv plant, manifestly 

 the first thing to do was either to reduce the number of branches 

 and leaves, or to modify them into sharp spines (not surface 



319 



