FOREWORD 



We believe that many readers art Interested in the 

 mysterious plants and flowers of the desert, especially of 

 the great Southwest. Here In our own back yard, as It 

 were, In sunny California and also over in that great sand 

 pile of southwestern Arizona, sometimes called the "Studio 

 of the Gods," time has carved and chiseled out wonderful 

 valleys and canons, and graced their floors with tiny streams 

 of water like threads of molten silver on burnished sands. 

 This desert fairyland Is brimful of Nature's most curious 

 plants and flowers. Here In Nature's workshop you will 

 find plants and flowers weird and marvelous, of fantastic 

 shapes and grotesque design, of glowing hue and exotic 

 fragrance. 



Out where rock and sand and gravel, and sagebrush and 

 mesqulte and chaparral struggle hard to hold on to life, the 

 giant cactus, Sahuaro, the Old Man cactus known as Cereus 

 senilis^ the Prickly Pear Opuntia, and the wonderful Night 

 Blooming Cereus live on peacefully and quietly and seem to 

 smile down on man and beast and reptile, In the magnificent 

 splendor of their brilliant flowers and fruit In the spring. 

 Drought or rain in plenty seems to make but little difference 

 to most of these, for the reason that Nature, the Great En- 

 gineer, has given these plants a unique structure which enables 

 them to store up enough moisture In their reservoir systems 

 to last, in some cases, as long as three years, if the rains 

 should not come. It would tax man's ingenuity to the ut- 

 most to beat that! 



