54 THE FANTASTIC CLAN 



Sunset Cactus; Common Pincushion Cactus 



(Mammillaria Grahamii) 



(Named In honor of Colonel J. D. Graham of the United 

 States Corps of Topographical Engineers) 



How to identify and how it grows 



The Sunset Cactus, or Common Pincushion Cactus, is 

 one of the most popular of the Pincushion Cactus species, per- 

 haps because of its wide range from Texas to California and 

 into old Mexico. It is quite symmetrical and small. It 

 grows as a stem from two to ten inches tall and as much as 

 two and one-half or three inches in diameter, in single stems 

 or several together in a clump. They are cylindrical or 

 globose and bear the tubercles closely set in a spiral arrange- 

 ment of twenty to twenty-three rows; these tubercles are 

 about a quarter-inch long and gray-green. There are about 

 seventeen grouped radial spines a half-inch or so long, of a 

 dull white with darker tips, and one or two central spines 

 which are longer and stouter, whitish, with purple-brown or 

 red-brown tips which are curved sharply upward. The flow- 

 ers are formed in a circle near the tops of the stems and are 

 about an inch long. The petals are rose-pink with pink or 

 white margins, while the sepals are purple-brown with pink 

 or white ciliate edges. The fruit is club-shaped and scarlet, 

 about an inch long. 



How to grow 



These plants are not injured by temperatures of twenty 

 or twenty-five degrees below freezing, and where the winter 

 temperatures drop as low as zero they grow easily in warm, 

 sunny conservatories. Plants grow readily from seed in 

 pots or flats in moist clay loam, with part shade, and trans- 

 plant easily at any season, growing well in sandy or gravelly 



