Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/345

Rh for some time attached, Lend a shaggy top-knot appearance which for the while detracts from the dignity of the plant. When the fruits are ripe, the fleshy pericarps split, disclosing the crimson pulps studded with small. black seeds. The effect, at this time, if one stands at a modest range suggests a mass of crimson flowers. The fruits are sought for by Mexicanos and Papagos with an avidity which to my own taste is scarcely justified by their flavor, that of a ripening fig.

Another prominent member of the cacti is the barrel-cactus (Echinocactus Wislezeni), which is two feet in height and eighteen inches in diameter, and is armed with large hooked spines. In this plant, as will be seen in the illustration, the rind is remarkably developed, this tissue containing about eighty per cent, water. As the sap when extracted is potable, this species, as well as certain others, is used as a source of water to quench the thirst. The prickly pears are found in profusion, and represent at least two species, one a shrubby form, four feet in height, the other a sprawler. The fruits of these two plants are also collected and eaten.

Smallest among these curious plants is a species of Mamillaria, each protuberance of which is surmounted by a radiating group of