CACTUS FAMILY. Cactaceae. 
fruits are spiny and become dry when ripe. This grows in 
the desert around Needles. 
a A horrible shrub, or dwarf tree, four to 
olla - : : ' 
Opintia filgida IX feet high, with a thick trunk and 
Red several, spreading, contorted branches, 
Spring,summer with cylindrical joints, twisting in awk- 
area ward ways. The trunk and larger limbs 
are brownish-gray, starred with dead, dry spines, but the 
twigs are pale bluish-green, covered thickly with stars of 
pale-yellowish spines, each an inch or so long, with a 
barbed tip. From the numerous magenta flowers strange, 
yellowish, cup-shaped fruits develop, seeming to spring one 
out of the other ina haphazard way, hanging in long chains, 
awkward but rather ornamental, and remaining on the 
plants for several years without change, except that they 
‘grow slightly larger. The distant effect of this plant is 
a pale, fuzzy mass, attractive in color, giving no hint of its 
treacherous character—more like a wild beast than a plant! 
The joints suggest a very ferocious chestnut-burr and 
break off at a touch, thrusting their spines deeply into the 
flesh of the unwary passer-by, so that the Indian story, that 
this plant flings its darts at wayfarers from a distance, 
might almost as well be true, and the barbs making the 
extraction difficult and painful. The ground under the 
plants is strewn with fallen joints, which take root and 
propagate themselves. Small animals pile these around 
their holes for defense, several kinds of birds build in the 
thorny branches and are safe from enemies, and the fruits, 
being spineless and succulent, are valuable for fodder, so 
the Cholla is not entirely malevolent. The name is 
pronounced Choya. There are many similar kinds, some 
with very handsome rose-like flowers, others with bright 
scarlet fruits. They are curious and interesting inhabi- 
tants of the desert. 
Low plants, with no main stem, with 
ee spreading, flattened branches, the joints 
Opitntiia basilaris 
Pink of which are flat disks, resembling fleshy, 
Spring bluish-green leaves. These disks are 
Arizona half an inch to an inch thick and six inches 
long, more or less heart-shaped, sprouting one out of the 
other, at unexpected angles. The beautiful flower is about 
three inches across, like a tissue-paper rose, pale or very 
308 . 
