DO CHOLLAS JUMP? 
backs away. She carries with her not only the thorn that 
has pricked her but the whole ball to which it is attached. 
The cow may try to rub the thorn ball off her side with 
her nose. Other thorns in it will attack her nose, and the 
whole ball may go with them. If she rubs her nose on 
her leg, the ball may attach itself to that member. In 
one way or another it will hold on so tightly at one place 
or the other that it is likely to ride with her for a long 
time and for great distances. 
These cholla balls are so lightly attached to the parent 
stem that they become loosened at the slightest touch. 
So readily do they leave it that many people of the West 
believe that they turn loose before they are touched, that 
they actually leap to meet the man or beast that ap¬ 
proaches them. This is not actually a fact. They must 
be touched before they can take hold. But because it 
seems to be a fact they are called jumping chollas. 
These bundles of thorns get themselves planted 
through this habit of sticking to animals that brush 
against them. This ball of thorns that attaches itself to 
the grazing cow eventually leaves her. It is still a living 
branch of the cholla and, when it settles down, is likely 
to send forth a root that will attach itself to the ground. 
Thus is it planted. From it will grow another sprawling, 
dwarfish, thorny tree of the waste places. It gets itself 
broadcast through its joints and its thorns, which it uses 
as grappling hooks that it may steal rides. 
101 
