156 THE FANTASTIC CLAN 



height of six inches, his stems are deeply ridged in spirals a 

 half-Inch or so apart, of a dull green or yellow-green and 

 scurfy. The thorns are stout and awl-shaped, abruptly 

 pointed, and translucent pink-yellow with darker tips, be- 

 coming dull gray or black near the base of the plant; twenty 

 or thirty spines radiating like the spokes of a wheel and 

 Interlocking with others, four or five centrals, dull gray with 

 reddish brown tips. Intertextus thrives in rocky, gravelly 

 soils at altitudes of four or five thousand feet; his bright and 

 beautiful bloom may be glimpsed from quite a distance, light 

 purplish flowers with yellow stamens, growing in clusters near 

 the centers or tops of the stems. The blossoms of Echino- 

 cactus nearly always appear in a circle around the head of 

 the plant, just above the young spine-bearing areolas, the 

 flowers continuing to develop on the Inside of the circle in 

 areolas that are continuously forming by further growth 

 of the plant. 



Purple Spined Visnagita (Echinocactus 



erectocentrus) 



Southeastern Arizona 



Purple Spined Visnagita is a gayly tinted beauty which 

 grows only In limited areas. Indeed not only is It rare and 

 beautiful but the species is fast disappearing; Indicative per- 

 haps that Nature in her wise prescience of coming events Is 

 already taking care of the problem of overproduction. The 

 flowers are white or flesh-color diffused with pink, most del- 

 icately shaded sometimes with a hint of lavender, and are very 

 lovely and fragrant though they do not open fully; they 

 come In clusters surmounting the stem, opening in the fore- 

 noon and closing in the afternoon, for four or five days in 

 April and May. It is not strange that the deeper-tinted 

 blossoms appear on the plants with the more brightly hued 



