50 THE FANTASTIC CLAN 



with brown or purple-brown tips. The flowers are a little 

 more than one inch long and one inch wide, and of cream 

 color to light yellow. The fruit is a deep rose-red and the 

 seeds are reddish purple. This plant likes the gravelly clay 

 loam soils best. 



How to grow 



These plants can be grown nearly anywhere with tem- 

 peratures no lower than twenty degrees of frost; but with 

 zero temperatures protection should be given, or the plants 

 grown in rock gardens in sunny conservatories. They grow 

 easily from seed in sandy or gravelly clay loam soil with 

 partial shade and enough irrigation to keep the soil moist. 

 Plants transplant readily to rocky or gravelly clay soils at 

 almost any season, if the thick fleshy roots are not injured in 

 digging. Water moderately once a month, and where con- 

 venient set plants among rocks. 



Recurved Spine Pincushion; Bent Spine Pin- 

 cushion (Coryphantha recurvata) 



(Named recurvata from the spines, which are bent down 

 against the plant) 



How to identify and how it grows 



The Recurved Spine Pincushion grows in clumps about 

 three feet across, sometimes less, and has several stems four 

 to eight inches long, which are globose, that is, longer than 

 broad. These stems bear twenty-seven or so spirally ar- 

 ranged rows on which appear the angled tubercles. These 

 rows or ridges also have the twenty-five radially grouped 

 spines and one light yellow or translucent grayish yellow cen- 

 tral spine. This arrangement of the spines forms a dense 

 impenetrable mass or layer over the surface of the plant. 



