DESERT SCENES IN Z AC AT EC AS 447 



properties. But this plant is not content with the lowlands, but climbs 

 to the top of the mountain above, where I saw some of the largest of 

 its kind. 



Echinocactus ingens, like nearly all of the cacti of this desert, pre- 

 fers the hills, and there its thick trunk, bristling with long straight 

 spines, grows to a diameter of a barrel and as much as five feet in height. 

 This bears its flowers in a furrow across the top. The pulp of this 

 plant is said by the peons to be sweet, but one who has tasted other 

 cacti which they eat, may be content to leave the appraisal of this 

 delicacy to others. 



The opuntias which cover the plain and mountain are of abundant 

 interest in their variety and numbers. The cylindropuntias abound in 

 forms of cholla, cardencia and tazajillo, according to native terminol- 

 ogy, with spines long and sharp and barbed, which penetrate with ease 

 thick leather leggings, and where they stick they stay. In this the 

 tazajillo, which grows as high as a horse's back, is especially to be 

 dreaded, with its stiff slender spines; it separates its joints at a touch 

 and sends them along with the passer-by. Under and around these 

 plants scores of these joints are busy taking root, though one seldom 

 finds thickets of tazajillo. Few of these young plants really have a 

 future before them, though there are enough of them as it is. But the 

 cardencias, arborescent opuntias like the species mammilata, spinosior, 

 etc., of the Arizona desert, are not so savage as the cholla, nor so un- 

 expectedly met with as their more slender and less conspicuous rela- 

 tives, the tazajillos, as above described. In its varied forms the nopal, 

 or flat-jointed Opuntia, is of more interest to the native than all the 

 other cactus forms. This is about the only kind of cactus that may 

 serve as fodder for cattle, and it is a common sight to behold some 

 hundreds of pounds of one of these species carried on passing ox-carts. 

 At the last camp where these travelers rested one could probably find 

 the remains of a fire where they had burned off the spines of a number 

 of nopals, which indeed is the principal diet of their oxen. 



Some of these nopals are of imposing size and aspect, but mostly 

 they are low procumbent forms, branching out in all directions, pushing 

 forth segment after segment from the lower forward margin of the 

 laterally compressed joint. Along the upper margin occur the flowers 

 and the succession of fruits in varying shades of yellow and red. Here 

 and there at higher altitudes are forms which produce edible fruits not 

 unlike the edible tunas which are produced under cultivation. It seems 

 quite possible that these may be the forerunners of some of the culti- 

 vated varieties, inasmuch as the preponderance of evidence points to 

 Mexican origin for the tuna-bearing nopals. Again we find on the hills 

 a small and compact species which has little to recommend it. This, 

 Opuntia microdasys, has branches closely set with coarse spicules which 

 are easily detached and are said to be a frequent cause of blindness 



