MINIATURE FORTRESSES 145 



The fruit is covered with tubercles or knobs and is yellowish 

 green. This plant grows best in the most arid parts of the 

 Southwest and in the hottest southern exposures of rocky 

 foothills and slopes. 



How to grow 



Young plants may be transplanted at any season, or joints 

 may be planted in gravelly rocky soils. The plants should 

 be watered once a month during the growing season until 

 well established, after that less frequently. They will grow 

 indoors and out, and are not injured by a temperature of 

 twenty degrees below freezing. With colder temperatures 

 they require protection. 



Many Colored Tree Cholla (Opuntia versicolor) 



(Named from the many colors of its joints and flowers) 



How to identify and how it grows 



The Many Colored Tree Cholla, or Opuntia versicolor^ 

 grows as a main trunk two or three feet high, with many as- 

 cending intricate branches which form a broad rounded head 

 from five to ten feet across at the widest part and six to twelve 

 feet high. The bark is coarse and fissured, gray or tan, 

 latterly scaling off. The joints or branches are from two to 

 ten inches long, are green or brown and tubercled. The 

 spicules form in a flattened mass and are yellow or brown. 

 The spines, five to fifteen, are awl-shaped and about three- 

 fourths of an inch long with brownish bases. The body is 

 of gray-brown or purplish hues covered with close-fitting 

 thin light yellowish sheaths. The flowers form in clusters 

 at the tips of the joints and are a yellow-green suffused with 

 red, pink, orange, or sometimes a deep maroon. The fruit 

 is also yellowish green suffused with purple and is pear- 

 shaped. Sometimes one fruit is found growing out from the 



