Chapter II: Foreword

We believe that many readers are interested in the mysterious plants and flowers of the desert, especially of the great Southwest. Here in our own back yard, as it were, in sunny California and also over in that great sand pile of southwestern Arizona, sometimes called the “Studio of the Gods,” time has carved and chiseled out wonderful valleys and cañons, and graced their floors with tiny streams of water like threads of molten silver on burnished sands. This desert fairyland is brimful of Nature’s most curious plants and flowers. Here in Nature’s workshop you will find plants and flowers weird and marvelous, of fantastic shapes and grotesque design, of glowing hue and exotic fragrance.

Out where rock and sand and gravel, and sagebrush and mesquite and chaparral struggle hard to hold on to life, the giant cactus, Sahuaro, the Old Man cactus known as _Cereus senilis_, the Prickly Pear Opuntia, and the wonderful Night Blooming Cereus live on peacefully and quietly and seem to smile down on man and beast and reptile, in the magnificent splendor of their brilliant flowers and fruit in the spring. Drought or rain in plenty seems to make but little difference to most of these, for the reason that Nature, the Great Engineer, has given these plants a unique structure which enables them to store up enough moisture in their reservoir systems to last, in some cases, as long as _three years_, if the rains should not come. It would tax man’s ingenuity to the utmost to beat that!

Do you know how the Cursed Cholla gets its name? or why the cactus spines are such a puzzle to the botanist? or the romance Time has woven round the Night Blooming Cereus? or why the Barrel cactus is the Indian’s friend in time of drought, the traveler’s friend when lost? or why the Fishhook cactus is called by that name? Would you know a Pipe Organ cactus if you saw one? Do you know that the Strawberry cactus or Hedgehog is delicious for food?

“The Fantastic Clan” tells you about all these things. In this book we take you on a pleasant journey through a wonderland of plant life, stopping at lonely isolated spots to view the Night Blooming Cereus cactus, whose ethereal beauty vies with the famous orchids of the South American forests. And to see this lovely queen in all her pristine beauty will make you forget the orchid and the rose! We also get a glimpse of the Hawaiian Night Blooming Cereus, so exquisitely beautiful that, for ages, in faraway Hawaii magnificent fiestas have marked the opening of the buds and the blooming of the Night Blooming Cereus.

Then we take you into the presence of the giant cactus, Sahuaro, which in a previous volume we have called the Sage of the desert; steadfast, towering pillarlike fifty feet into the air, he gives a sense of power to all who behold him, some certain realization of the grandeur and the mystery of God’s creations here on Earth.

The Serpent cacti, with their grotesque angular arms projecting like so many sinuous tentacles, claim our attention next; and the Prickly Pears, advance guard for the entire cactus clan, pass before our gaze. Many, many others, of fantastic shapes and distorted growth, freaks of nature, also numbers of God’s glorious creations, flowers of ethereal beauty, trees, majestic and noble, crowd into this picture stretched before our eyes in one vast scene of limitless sand, the Great American Desert.

CONTENTS

PAGE
PREFACE vii
FOREWORD ix
I A DESERT FASHION SHOW 1
(_Cereus_)
II CACTUS SPINES AND PECULIARITIES 27
III THE BABY CACTUS 32
(_Pincushion_)
IV THE PARADE OF THE DESERT FLOWERS 62
(_Hedgehog or Strawberry_)
V THE PAINTED CANVAS OF THE DESERT 88
(_Prickly Pears_)
VI MINIATURE FORTRESSES ON THE DESERT 119
(_Cholla_)
VII A DESERT GRAVEYARD 153
(_Barrel or Bisnaga_)
VIII CONCLUSION 185
GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 187
INDEX 191

ILLUSTRATIONS

MEXICAN NIGHT BLOOMING CEREUS; REINA DE NOCHE; SERPENT CACTUS
(_Cereus serpentinus_) _Frontispiece_
PAGE
SENITA, ZINA, OR SINA (_Cereus Schottii_) 4
NIGHT BLOOMING CEREUS; GODDESS OF THE NIGHT; LA REINA DE NOCHE; THE
QUEEN OF NIGHT (_Cereus Greggii_) _Facing_ 8
SAHUARO OR GIANT CACTUS (_Cereus giganteus_); AND PALO VERDE ” 9
SHORT SPINED STRAWBERRY CACTUS (_Echinocereus Bonkeræ_) ” 28
HORNED TOAD CACTUS (_Mammillaria Mainæ_) ” 40
SLENDER PINCUSHION CACTUS (_Mammillaria fasciculata_) ” 40
SUNSET CACTUS (_Mammillaria Grahamii_) ” 41
BENT SPINE PINCUSHION (_Coryphantha recurvata_) ” 41
GOLDEN SPINED STRAWBERRY CACTUS (_Echinocereus chrysocentrus_) ” 66
TURK’S HEAD (_Echinocactus horizonthalonius_) ” 66
TRAVELER’S FRIEND; CANDY CACTUS; TRAVELER’S COMPASS (_Echinocactus
Covillei_) ” 66
DESERT STRAWBERRIES; FENDLER’S HEDGEHOG CACTUS (_Echinocereus
Fendleri_) ” 67
INDIAN STRAWBERRY CACTUS; ENGELMANN’S HEDGEHOG CACTUS
(_Echinocereus Engelmannii_) ” 67
SHORT SPINED STRAWBERRY CACTUS (Echinocereus Bonkeræ) ” 72
SALMON FLOWERED HEDGEHOG CACTUS (_Echinocereus Leeanus_) ” 72
CREAM PINCUSHION CACTUS (_Mammillaria Johnstonii_) ” 73
SHOWY PINCUSHION CACTUS (_Coryphantha aggregata_) ” 73
SNOWBALL PINCUSHION (_Mammillaria Oliviæ_) ” 73
CALIFORNIA PINCUSHION (_Mammillaria tetrancistera_) ” 73
RAINBOW CACTUS (_Echinocereus rigidissimus_) ” 84
PAPAGO FRUIT CACTUS (_Opuntia Blakeana_) 91
DELICATE PRICKLY PEAR (_Opuntia delicata_) 92
WHIPPLE’S CHOLLA (_Opuntia Whipplei_) 93
PURPLE PRICKLY PEAR (_Opuntia santa rita_) 93
SMOOTH PRICKLY PEAR (_Opuntia laevis_) 95
FOOTHILL PRICKLY PEAR (_Opuntia Toumeyi_) 96
DISCUS PRICKLY PEAR (_Opuntia discata_) 98
ENGELMANN’S PRICKLY PEAR (_Opuntia Engelmannii_) 99
BEAVER TAIL (_Opuntia basilaris_) ” 100
FLAPJACK PRICKLY PEAR (_Opuntia chlorotica_) ” 100
PORCUPINE PRICKLY PEAR (_Opuntia hystricina_) ” 101
TEDDY BEAR CACTUS (_Opuntia Bigelovii_) ” 101
GOLDEN PRICKLY PEAR (_Opuntia Covillei_) 102
PORCUPINE PRICKLY PEAR (_Opuntia hystricina_) 105
LONG SPINED PRICKLY PEAR (_Opuntia macrocentra_) 105
GIANT CACTUS OR SAHUARO (_Cereus giganteus_) ” 124
MEXICAN NIGHT BLOOMING CEREUS; SERPENT CACTUS; REINA DE NOCHE
(_Cereus serpentinus_) ” 125
DESERT CHRISTMAS CACTUS; TASAJILLO (_Opuntia leptocaulis_) 128
PROLIFIC TREE CHOLLA (_Opuntia arbuscula_) 128
MANY COLORED TREE CHOLLA (_Opuntia versicolor_) 131
POPULAR CHOLLA (_Opuntia tetracantha_) 131
THORNBER’S CHOLLA (_Opuntia Thornberi_) 135
MANY COLORED TREE CHOLLA (_Opuntia versicolor_) 135
JUMPING CHOLLA (_Opuntia fulgida_) ” 136
CURSED CHOLLA; DEVIL CACTUS (_Opuntia Stanlyi_) ” 137
BUCKHORN CHOLLA (_Opuntia acanthocarpa_) ” 137
CURSED CHOLLA; DEVIL CHOLLA (_Opuntia Stanlyi_) 138
JUMPING CHOLLA (_Opuntia fulgida_) 138
SPINY TREE CHOLLA (_Opuntia spinosior_) ” 140
CANDY BARREL CACTUS; FISHHOOK CACTUS (_Echinocactus Wislizeni_) ” 160
PINK FLOWERED VISNAGITA (_Echinocactus Johnsonii_) ” 160
MEXICAN FRUIT CACTUS (_Echinocactus hamatacanthus_) ” 161
GIANT VISNAGA; GIANT BARREL CACTUS (_Echinocactus Visnaga_) ” 161

THE FANTASTIC CLAN