JUL W 



The Tuna. 153 



THE TUNA. 



(From the Pacific Rural Press, xli. 189.) 



Probably no class of plants is more greatly admired or more thor- 

 oughly detested than the Cactacea? — admired for their oddity, for 

 their beauty of form, for their lovely flowers and for their luscious 

 fruit, the cacti are detested to almost an equal extent by the average 

 cattleman or rancher as a useless cumberer of the ground. 



The flattened oval or elliptical stems of the tuna, abundantly 

 armed with a formidable array of spines, is the type of one of the 

 most familiar forms of cactus, and perhaps better known to English- 

 speaking races as Indian figs or prickly pears. 



Among the numerous known forms of Opuntia there are several 

 species which are very generally known to the Mexicans by the 

 name of tuna. O. tuna and O. ficus-indica are the two species to 

 which this name is more frequently applied, but the common wild 

 varieties or species of flat-stemmed Opuntias are very generally in- 

 cluded without distinction. 



These cacti are very widely utilized in Mexico and in portions 

 of the United States along the Mexican border in a countless number 

 of ways. The cattleman, after burning the spines from the tender, 

 succulent joints, will feed them to his stock with profitable results; 

 or, in a treeless region, he will plant them as hedges around his 

 corrals or cultivated fields, thus utilizing what in the previous case 

 he destroys — the plant's natural defense against total extermination. 



Growing in dry, sandy or rocky soil, they thrive where scarce 

 any other vegetation can exist. Planted around the Californian 

 Missions in the most fertile spots, they attain a most luxuriant 

 growth. Thus, they are naturally adapted not only to thrive in 

 sterile districts and to prepare the barren soil for other classes of 

 vegetation, but they are equally at home under the most advanced 

 stages of cultivation. 



The Cactacese are without exception, I believe, indigenous to the 

 American continent and the adjacent islands, but the tunas in 

 numerous varieties have become extensively naturalized and are 

 also cultivated with considerable profit in the south of Europe. In 

 Sicily, Opuntia vulgaris is said to thrive in volcanic districts, which 

 would otherwise be barren of vegetation. 



The Mexican names nopal and tuna refer to the same species of 

 plants, but nopal refers to the leaf-like stem, while tuna refers to the 

 fruit. From being Used to indicate a part only of the plant they 

 have come to be generally applied to the whole. 



The tunas, naturalized around the Missions of Southern Califor- 

 nia, were brought from Mexico by the Spanish padres, who trained 

 them into hedges around the Mission gardens and buildings. They 

 grow from ten to fifteen feet high, producing an abundance of large, 

 well-flavored, edible fruit. 



