94 THE FANTASTIC CLAN 



and to weary mortals here below. A symphony in purple and 

 yellow greets our tired eyes and brightens our jaded spirits 

 as we motor slowly along the highroad; and we stop to get 

 a closer view of this handsomest of all the brilliant Opuntia, 

 the Purple Prickly Pear. A dash of purple in the sepals 

 tones into golden yellow in petals and stamens of the large 

 beautiful blooms, three inches across when full open and 

 nearly four inches in length, the lemon and deep yellow flow- 

 ers in vivid contrast to the bright purple joints of santa rita 

 in the spring. Then in summer the densely glaucous gray- 

 blue joints form a striking color scheme together with the 

 bright purple fruit. Two to five feet tall, the plants branch 

 from a short thick trunk in numerous stemlike appendages 

 which look like so many "flapjacks" on the desert. They 

 prefer the gravelly or rocky soils at levels of three to five 

 thousand feet, and grow over drab bajadas and somber foot- 

 hill slopes near the high Santa Ritas, where they were dis- 

 covered by Dr. David Griffiths and named for this majestic 

 range which towers in sight of these brilliantly beautiful and 

 slender-spined pearlike cacti. These rare plants are find- 

 ing a place in many gardens throughout the Southwest, and 

 even abroad in England they may be grown satisfactorily in 

 indoor cactus gardens. 



Smooth Prickly Pear (Opuntia laevis) 



Southern Arizona 



The Smooth Prickly Pear is a dainty morsel, and how the 

 cattle like to espy it in the few open spaces where it ventures 

 to growl For this cactus is nearly spineless and clings to 

 the inaccessible cafion slopes where stock cannot prey upon it. 

 In April a nd M ay \t forms a striking picture on the desert 

 canvas, a great patch of large, showy, lemon-col ored b los- 

 soms peering forth from the jutting and protectmg rocks on 

 all sides of the steep mountain cliffs here in southern Ari- 



I 



