104 THE FANTASTIC CLAN 



light brown and purplish, the others pale green and bluish 

 green; the slender yellowish spicules are not quite half an 

 inch long, the bristling spines a trifle longer. The bloom, 

 as of so many of the prickly pear species, is of a light lemon- 

 yellow with a brilliant orange-red center, about two and one- 

 half inches long and across; like others of this clan it opens 

 early in the morning, closing when the late afternoon shadows 

 begin to spell the end of the hot desert day. Seldom appear- 

 ing in clumps, generally growing alone, chlorotica delights to 

 cover the foothills and low mountain canons with her pretty 

 lemon blossoms, her short stout trunks, and their numerous 

 flat pearlike joints. 



Porcupine Prickly Pear (Opuntia hystricina) 



Northern Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada 



As we approach Los Angeles, California, we recall a pe- 

 culiar little growth in northern Arizona, Nevada, and New 

 Mexico called Opuntia hystricina; also the Porcupine Prickly 

 Pear, its long slender needlelike spines, reddish or red- 

 brown, giving the plant a shaggy appearance strongly resem- 

 bling that bristling little animal. In fact the name of the 

 species hystricina comes from the Greek word for "porcu- 

 pine." Only a foot or so tall, its thorny stems spread out 

 into loose clumps, the flat hairy joints, five or six inches long, 

 looking just like so many bristling young porcupines; then 

 with a crescent mass of light yellowish spicules an eighth-inch 

 long or less, and six to ten finely grooved white and brown- 

 ish spines, encircled sometimes with white and brown bands. 

 In lovely contrast appear the beautiful large purple blossoms, 

 three inches long and with as great a spread when fully ex- 

 panded in April or May, opening but once, then closing in late 

 afternoon never to open again. Thriving in the clay loam 

 and gravelly soils of mountains and rocky canons in north- 



