PARADE OF THE DESERT FLOWERS 85 



jured in digging. Give enough water to keep the soil moist 

 during the growing season. Plants may be grown from 

 seed in moist sandy soil in part shade or diffused sunlight. 

 When mature plants are used and transplanted in early 

 spring they blossom the same season. 



Short Spixed Strawberry Cactus (Echinocereus 



Bonkerce) 



(Named for Frances Bonker, one of the authors 

 of this book) 



How to identify and how it grows 



Bonkers, or the Short Spined Strawberry Cactus, Is ob- 

 long-cylindrical with the tips somewhat depressed. It has 

 low obtuse ridges, fewer than twenty, of a light green. 

 These ridges are covered with a network of radial spines, 

 the younger ones whitish, fading to gray-white, yellow or 

 yellowish brown In age. The centrals are yellow-brown 

 changing to red-brown In older thorns. All the spines are 

 less than a half-Inch long and vary In coloring, with brown 

 bulbous bases and translucent tips. This cactus Is to be found 

 in clusters of from two to ten stems, and Is very attractive with 

 its rose-purple to deep rose-purple flowers nearly three inches 

 long, and its many stamens, stigmas, and filaments in bright 

 and light green. The fourteen petals and nine sepals have 

 obtuse tips and short points; the styles are longer than the 

 stamens. Plants grow along the dry foothills and low moun- 

 tains in clumps of a foot or less across. 



How to grow 



This species grows outdoors and Is not Injured by tem- 

 peratures twenty or twenty-five degrees below freezing; in 

 colder climates than this it must be given some protection 

 or grown in cool, dry, sunny greenhouses. Plants may be 



