In the Giant Cactus Belt | 175 
These pale green columns are fluted and the 
long transverse ridges are studded with spines 
arranged in clusters. 
Growing side by side with the saguaro, 
though having a vastly more extensive range, 
is the ocotilla (Fouquiera splendens), a plant 
almost as individual and as characteristic of 
the desert areaof theSouth-West as the cactus. 
Now, in November, it is leafless and its long 
whiplike branches, rising from a common base 
as do the arms from the head of an octopus, 
and covered with spines, are Medusa-like 
and uncanny. In spring’ we shall see it in 
leaf and bearing brilliant red blossoms at the 
ends of the branches, transformed—trans- 
figured one might almost say—into one of the 
most graceful and beautiful plants of the 
desert. 
The descent from the high plateau of 
northern Arizona brings one to a desert valley, 
an arm as it were of the Salt River valley. 
Of these ‘‘valleys’’ a government report has 
this to say: ‘‘The so-called valleys of Salt and 
Gila rivers are but parts of a broad plain occu- 
pying a large portion of south-western Arizona. 
The valleys are in part surrounded by moun- 
tainous areas, and they themselves in turn 
surround isolated peaks and groups of moun- 
