X FOREWORD 



Do you know how the Cursed Cholla gets its name? or 

 why the cactus spines are such a puzzle to the botanist? or 

 the romance Time has woven round the Night Blooming 

 Cereus ? or why the Barrel cactus is the Indian's friend in time 

 of drought, the traveler's friend when lost? or why the Fish- 

 hook cactus is called by that name? Would you know a 

 Pipe Organ cactus if you saw one? Do you know that the 

 Strawberry cactus or Hedgehog is delicious for food? 



"The Fantastic Clan" tells you about all these things. In 

 this book we take you on a pleasant journey through a won- 

 derland of plant life, stopping at lonely isolated spots to 

 view the Night Blooming Cereus cactus, whose ethereal 

 beauty vies with the famous orchids of the South American 

 forests. And to see this lovely queen in all her pristine 

 beauty will make you forget the orchid and the rose ! We 

 also get a glimpse of the Hawaiian Night Blooming Cereus, 

 so exquisitely beautiful that, for ages, in faraway Hawaii 

 magnificent fiestas have marked the opening of the buds and 

 the blooming of the Night Blooming Cereus. 



Then we take you into the presence of the giant cactus, 

 Sahuaro, which in a previous volume we have called the Sage 

 of the desert; steadfast, towering pillarlike fifty feet into 

 the air, he gives a sense of power to all who behold him, some 

 certain realization of the grandeur and the mystery of God's 

 creations here on Earth. 



The Serpent cacti, with their grotesque angular arms pro- 

 jecting like so many sinuous tentacles, claim our attention 

 next; and the Prickly Pears, advance guard for the entire 

 cactus clan, pass before our gaze. Many, many others, of 

 fantastic shapes and distorted growth, freaks of nature, 

 also numbers of God's glorious creations, flowers of ethereal 

 beauty, trees, majestic and noble, crowd into this picture 

 stretched before our eyes in one vast scene of limitless sand, 

 the Great American Desert. 



