CACTUS FAMILY. Cactaceae. 



fruits are spiny and become dry when ripe. This grows in 

 the desert around Needles. 



A horrible shrub, or dwarf tree, four to 



Opuntia fulgida six feet hi h with a thick trunk and 

 Red several, spreading, contorted branches, 



Spring, summer w ith cylindrical joints, twisting in awk- 

 ward ways. The trunk and larger limbs 

 are brownish-gray, starred with dead, dry spines, but the 

 twigs are pale bluish-green, covered thickly with stars of 

 pale-yellowish spines, each an inch or so long, with a 

 barbed tip. From the numerous magenta flowers strange, 

 yellowish, cup-shaped fruits develop, seeming to spring one 

 out of the other in a haphazard way, hanging in long chains, 

 awkward but rather ornamental, and remaining on the 

 plants for several years without change, except that they 

 grow slightly larger. The distant effect of this plant is 

 a pale, fuzzy mass, attractive in color, giving no hint of its 

 treacherous character more like a wild beast than a plant! 

 The joints suggest a very ferocious chestnut-burr and 

 break off at a touch, thrusting their spines deeply into the 

 flesh of the unwary passer-by, so that the Indian story, that 

 this plant flings its darts at wayfarers from a distance, 

 might almost as well be true, and the barbs making the 

 extraction difficult and painful. The ground under the 

 plants is strewn with fallen joints, which take root and 

 propagate themselves. Small animals pile these around 

 their holes for defense, several kinds of birds build in the 

 thorny branches and are safe from enemies, and the fruits, 

 being spineless and succulent, are valuable for fodder, so 

 the Cholla is not entirely malevolent. The name is 

 pronounced Choya. There are many similar kinds, some 

 with very handsome rose-like flowers, others with bright 

 scarlet fruits. They are curious and interesting inhabi- 

 tants of the desert. 



Low plants, with no main stem, with 

 spreading, flattened branches, the joints 

 Pink of which are flat disks, resembling fleshy, 



Spring bluish-green leaves. These disks are 



Arizona half an inch to an j nch #& an( j s j x j nc hes 



long, more or less heart-shaped, sprouting one out of the 



other, at unexpected angles. The beautiful flower is about 



three inches across, like a tissue-paper rose, pale or very 



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