CACTUS AND GBEASE-WOOD 



139 



the hills indefinitely with little or no moisture ; 

 but he will eat a water melon, rind and all, and 

 with great relish, when the opportunity offers. 

 The sahuaro, the bisnaga, the eholla, and the 

 pan-cake lobed prickly pear would have a short 

 life and not a merry one if they were left to the 

 mercy of the desert prowler. As it is they are 

 sometimes sadly worried about their roots by 

 rabbits and in their lobes by the deer. It 

 seems almost incredible but is not the less a 

 fact, that deer and desert cattle will eat the 

 choUa — fruit, stem, and trunk — though it 

 bristles with spines that will draw blood from 

 the human hand at the slightest touch. 



Nature knows very well that the attack will 

 come and so she provides her plants with various 

 different defenses. The most common weapon 

 which she gives them is the spine or thorn. 

 Almost everything that grows has it and its 

 different forms are many. They are all of them 

 sharp as a needle and some of them have saw- 

 edges that rip anything with which they come 

 in contact. The grasses, and those plants akin 

 to them like the yucca and the maguey, are 

 often both saw-edged and spine-pointed. All 

 the cacti have thorns, some straight, some 

 barbed like a harpoon, some curved like a hook. 



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