28 THE FANTASTIC CLAN 



Opuntia. The prickly pears grow wild from Argentina 

 through Central America, Mexico, and the United States to 

 British Columbia, within four or five hundred miles of the 

 Arctic Circle. Prickly pears may be regarded as the ad- 

 vance guard of the cactus invasion of the United States from 

 Mexico, and there are nearly as many kinds in our country 

 as In Mexico. Prickly pears are most abundant in the tem- 

 perate zones ; the species grow larger in tropical parts than In 

 cooler temperate regions. 



All told, there are more than twelve hundred species or 

 kinds of cacti, of which about two hundred twenty-five occur 

 In the United States and the rest In Mexico, Central America, 

 South America and outlying Islands. Of the two hundred 

 twenty-five species occurring In the United States, about one 

 hundred are native of Arizona, the premier cactus state, and 

 nearly two hundred grow in the four southwestern states, 

 California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, with a few 

 in Nevada and Utah. Arizona contains almost one-tenth 

 of the cacti of the entire earth. Our four southwestern 

 states together with Mexico constitute the great cactus area 

 of the world, not alone in numbers but In variety and weird- 

 ness of types, containing many of the most peculiar and 

 fantastic forms of these grotesque plants. 



Doubtless because the cacti are such odd, weird, fantastic 

 growths, they have been popular with mankind since the 

 earliest times. To-day forty or fifty species are known only 

 in cultivation; and they have been under culture so long that 

 their native habitats and original distribution have been for- 

 gotten, and are no longer known. This Is due largely to the 

 fact that several very popular species have been dug up and 

 removed from their own haunts to cultivated lands, or 

 planted in gardens to such an extent that the last specimens 

 have been taken and they no longer grow wild or under nat- 

 ural conditions. This uprooting is taking place continuously, 



J 



