34 THE SERI INDIANS |eih. ,uiN.17 



single root; both are masses of watery pulp, revived aud renewed 

 during each humid season, and Itotli flower in a crown of fragrant 

 and brilliant blossoms at or near the top of column or branch, and 

 fruit in tig-like tunas (or prickly i)ears) during late summer or early 

 autumn. Ordinarily the saguesa, like the saguaro, is sparsely dis- 

 tributed; but there is an immense tract between Dcsierto Encinas aud 

 the eastern base of Sierra Seri in which it forms a literal forest, the 

 giant trunks close-set as those of trees in normal woodlands. Hardly 

 less imposing than the giant cactus is the wide-branching species 

 known as pitahaya [Gereus thtirhuri'l), in which the trunks may be ten 

 to lifty in number, each 4 to 8 inches in diameter and 5 to 40 feet in 

 height; and equally conspicuous, especially in eastern Seriland, is the 

 cina {Gereus schotti), which is of corresponding size, and differs chiefly 

 in the simpler fluting of the thorn-protected columns. Both the pita- 

 haya and the cina flower and fruit like the saguaro, the tunas yielded 

 by the former being especially esteemed by Mexicans as well as Indians. 

 Another important cactus is the visnaga {Echinocactus icisUzeni lecon- 

 tei), which rises in a single trunk much like the saguaro, save that it 

 is commonly but 3 to 6 feet in height and is protected by a more effect- 

 ive armature of straight and curved thorns; it yields a pleasantly acid, 

 pulpy fruit, which may be extracted from its thorny setting with some 

 difticulty; but its chief value lies in the purity and potability of the 

 water with which the pulpy trunk is stored. The visnaga is widely 

 distributed throughout the Sonoran province and beyond, and extends 

 into eastern Seriland; it is rare west of Desierto Eucinas and is prac- 

 tically absent from Isla Tiburon, where it may easily have been 

 exterminated by the improvident Seri during the centuries of their 

 occupancy. Most abundant of all the cacti, and less conspicuous 

 only by reason of comparatively small size, is the cholla (an arborescent 

 Opunti(t); on many of the sheetflood carved plains it forms extensive 

 thickets 5 to 8 feet high, the main trunks being 2 to (! inches in diame- 

 ter, while dozens or hundreds of gaunt and thorn covered branches ex- 

 tend 3 to 8 feet in all directions ; and it occurs here and there throughout 

 the district from the depths of the valleys and the coast well up to the 

 rocky slope of the sierras. It yields (juantities of fruit, somewhat like 

 tunas, but more woody aud insipid ; this fruit is seldom if ever used 

 for human food, but is freely cousumed by herbivores. Much less 

 abundant than the cholla is the nopal, or prickly pear; and there are 

 various other opuntias, often too slender to stand alone and intertwined 

 with stitter shrubs which lend them support, and many of these yield 

 small berry like tunas. Another characteristic cactus, widespread as 

 the cholla and abundant in nearly all parts of Seriland save on the 

 rocky slopes, is the okatilla {Fouquiera splendens). It consists of half a 

 dozen to a score of slender, woody, and thorn-set branches radiating 

 from a common root, usually at angles of 30^ to 45° from the vertical, 

 and ordinarily reaching heights of 10 to liO feet. 



