A DESERT FRUIT. 61 



another in any way ; often they belong to most widely 

 distinct families; it is an adaptive resemblance alone, 

 due to similarity of external circumstances only. The 

 plants have to fight against the same difficulties, and 

 they adopt for the most part the same tactics to fight 

 them with. In other words, any plant of whatever family, 

 which wishes to thrive in desert conditions, must almost, 

 as a matter of course, become thick and succulent, so as 

 to store up water, and must be protected by a stout 

 epidermis to prevent its evaporation under the fierce 

 heat of the sunlight. They do not necessarily lose their 

 leaves in the process ; but the jointed stem usually 

 answers the purpose of leaves under such conditions far 

 better than any thin and exposed blade could do in the 

 arid air of a baking desert. And therefore, as a rule, 

 desert plants are leafless. 



In India, for example, there are no cactuses. But I 

 wouldn't advise you to dispute the point with a peppery, 

 fire-eating Anglo-Indian colonel. I did so once, myself, 

 at the risk of my life, at a table d'hote on the Continent ; 

 and the wonder is that I'm still alive to tell the story. 

 I had nothing but facts on my side, while the colonel 

 had fists, and probably pistols. And when I say no 

 cactuses, I mean, of course, no indigenous species ; for 

 prickly pears and epiphyllums may naturally be planted 

 by the hand of man anywhere. But what people take 

 for thickets of cactus in the Indian jungle are really 

 thickets of cactus-like spurges. In the dry soil of India, 

 many spurges grow thick and succulent, learn to suppress 

 their leaves, and assume the bizarre forms and quaint 

 jointed appearance of the true cactuses. In flower and 



