90 THE FANTASTIC CLAN 



flaming orange and yellow, or occasionally rich purple and 

 red blossoms, which open for only a short time during the 

 day and close when the shadows of the sun begin to bathe 

 the hills in orange and purples as the desert sunset ap- 

 proaches. In a few cases they unfold for a short time the 

 following day, but most bloom for but the one period of five 

 to seven hours or so. Commonly the blossoms change from 

 yellow when they open to orange in the afternoon, and in 

 some species to red-orange. It is also noted that when the 

 flowers unfold for a second day, their bright colorings deepen 

 and darken in orange or red. We find that the clan of the 

 Prickly Pear nearly always have thorns different from those 

 of most other groups of Cactacese in that they are only of 

 one kind, though the sizes may vary. In the genus of 

 Opuntia there are no radial nor central spines; the thorns 

 are merely spines in the full sense of the word. We note 

 that the Prickly Pear is really a shrub with many stems 

 branching from the base, and that their pear-shaped joints 

 are In reality stems or branches and are not just leaves as 

 many suppose; the true leaves being very small and scalelike 

 and disappearing after a short time, withering away and 

 falling off. The species grow readily from these pearlike 

 joints, and this is a common method of propagating Opuntia. 

 They will also grow from seeds, but these develop very 

 slowly and require a long time in the ground before they 

 germinate. 



Papago Fruit Cactus (Opuntia Blakeana) 



Southern Arizona 



It Is from Tucson, in the rocky foothills of southeastern 

 Arizona, that we start on our long trip across the state and 

 into old Mexico and California. The first of the lovely auro- 

 ral coloring to attract our notice Is the low spreading Prickly 



