L 
DO CHOLLAS JUMP? 
I SN’T IT ODD that the people of the Southwest hold 
to the theory that the cholla has the power to move 
quickly, and therefore persist in calling it the jumping 
cholla! 
The sahuaro tends to have a single upright column. 
The prickly pear is like a bush, with many branches which 
are built up of links of its thick, lobe-like leaves. The 
cholla goes a little further than the prickly pear toward 
being a low, sprawling tree of many branches. 
The cholla is like its cousin, the prickly pear, in that it 
adds to its stature joint by joint. Instead of flat leaves, 
however, the joints are round and thickly covered with 
thorns that point in every direction. These thorns 
are unbelievably sharp and are bearded like fishhooks 
so that, once they get into anything, they are hard to 
detach. 
There is a reason for this arrangement: the cholla has 
a way all its own of getting itself planted. Think, for a 
moment, of this branching cholla that has got itself es¬ 
tablished there on the edge of the plain. It has grown 
until it is as big as an automobile. All its outer fringes 
are covered with these thorny balls. Along comes one of 
those white-faced cows of the range, browsing on the 
needle grass about its roots. She reaches too far beneath 
this thorny bush and barely touches one of its thorn balls. 
One of its spines does its duty. The cow flinches and 
100 
