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DESERT "botanical GARDEN o/ ARIZONA^^^^

JANUARY, 1955

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Published and owned by the Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society, sponsors
of the Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona, P.O. Box 547, Tempe. Saguaroland
Bulletin attempts to promote the Garden and to provide information on the desert
plants and their culture. Subscription $3.00 per year, the subscription including
active membership in the Society and the Desert Botanical Garden. Issued 10 times
a year.

W. TAYLOR MARSHALL, Editor

Volume 9 January, 1955 No. 1

Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society

EXECUTIVE BOARD

Chairman of Board . John H. Eversole Treasurer . Tom Goodnight

President . W. Taylor Marshall Secretary . . Angela Bool

Vice President . Lou Ella Archer Chief Counsel . William Elliott

BOARD MEMBERS

Edward L. Burrall Leslie J. Mahoney Mel Hinman

Reg Manning John H. Rhuart

Table of Contents

Editorial . 3

Correction . 4

Cactus Show Schedule . 5

New Staff Member . 9

New Research Program . 10

Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona

STAFF

Director _ W. Taylor Marshall

Senior Botanist _ James A. McCleary, Ph.D.

Superintendent _ W. Hubert Earle

Curator of Herbarium _ E. R. (Jim) Blakley

Garden open every day, except Monday, from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.

No charge for admission.

Lectures — Each Wednesday and Thursday — 3:30 P.M.
Thursday lecture illustrated with Kodachromes.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

EDITORIAL

Once again our Cactus Show time ap¬
proaches as the show, this year, will
open on Sunday, February 20th, at 12
noon and close at 5 P.M. Sunday, Febru¬
ary 27th.

Again this year our Eighth Annual
Show will be under the direction of
W. H. Earle, our Superintendent, who
made a great success of the last three
shows.

Mr. Earle again calls for volunteers
from our membership to act as guides,
guards and hostesses during the show
and he asks you to contact him by
phone or in person and let him know

first to make reservations will be given
the best spaces.

We then can have some idea of the
number of tables we will need for this
show and can be prepared to give am¬
ple space to all entries.

As this editorial is written the year
1954 nears its end and we look forward
with great expectations to 1955. It is a
suitable time to assess the accomplish¬
ments and failures of the old year and
to plan for greater progress in the year
ahead.

We feel that we have accomplished

A view of last years Cactus Show in Webster Auditorium

the time which will be most agreeable
to you so that he can be sure in ad¬
vance of enough volunteer helpers to
have several on duty every hour of the
eight days of the showing.

A schedule of entries for exhibits is
printed in the center section of this is¬
sue of the Bulletin and can be removed
for more conveneint use.

Why not plan now to enter the show
and decide in which section and classi-
iication your entries will be made, then
notify Mr. Earle of the number of en¬
tries you plan and the approximate
space that you will need for your en¬
tries.

Space will be assigned to you and the

many of the things we planned at this
same period of 1953. New walks have
been opened and blacktopped. Four
new stone benches have been built as
has cur new meditation room and large
new areas along the new walks have
been landscaped. We have completed
the Archer House by adding to its large
terrace.

We have slightly increased our mem¬
bership over the last year but not to the
extent that it should have increased. We
have done little towards the needed new
parking lots and entrance building ex¬
cept to landscape up to the point where
the building will be erected.

Increased membership and progress

JANUARY, 1955

on the parking lots and entrance build¬
ing will therefore be our main object¬
ives for 1955,

Our gratitude to the many members
who so generously gave of their time
and money during this past year. They
have been wonderful and much too nu ■
merous to name in the available space.

A few names, however, stand out in
our memory. There is John Eversole
who has given us many needed pieces of
equipment and generous cash contribu¬
tions. Mr. Albert Simms of Albuquer¬
que, whose contribution paid for our
herbarium cases and the work on the
new Morawetz path.

Charlie Mieg has donated cash and
made three expensive trips to secure
for us several hundred rare plants from
Mexico and the United States all thor¬
oughly annotated. The Hermann family
who gave generously of their time to

the garden and took time, at their own
expense, to make collections of the new
Pediocactus hermannnii and many other
species, for us.

Herman Schroeder of Avalon, Calif.,
has sent us many beautiful seedlings
grown by himself over many years
which are now admired as outstanding
in our lath house, and Paul Hutchison
of the Botanical Garden of the Univer¬
sity of California from whom we have
received several hundred rare plants,
many collected by himself in Peru and
Chile,

The list might go on and on but these
mentions will indicate the reason for
the marked improvement in our plant¬
ings during the last year.

To all of you the best wishes of the
Staff and your editor for the coming
year, may 1955 be a happy and pros¬
perous one for you.

Another view

of last years Cactus Show

CORRECTION

Mrs. Carroll Mills of Phoenix advises
us that the plant of the claret cup cac¬
tus illustrated by us in the December
Bulletin on page 114 was photographed
in color by Carroll Mills several months
before the black and white picture we
used was taken by John Hales.

In our article we stated that "‘the
plant was found by our member, Man-

uel Diaz, near Mayer, Ariz.” and this
statement is true even though it had
also been previously found by Mr. Mills

and, doubtless by others, before that
time.

We are glad to make known the fact
that it was Mr. Mills who gave John
Hales directions for finding it.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Seventh Annual

CACTUS SHOW

FEBRUARY 20TH TO FEBRUARY 28TH, 1955

Administration Building
Desert Botanical Garden

Entries can be placed in space assigned after 1 P.M. Saturday,
February 19th or before 10 A.M. Sunday February 20th. Exhibits
can be removed Sunday February 28th after 5 P.M. or on Monday,
February 28th. For additional information telephone WH 5-8513.

Exhibits Open to the Public
12 Noon Sunday, February 20th, 1955
Daily to February 27th, 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.

No Admission Charge

W. H. Earle, Show Manager

JANUARY, 1955

Schedule of Classifications

SECTION

8.
9.

10:

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.
21.

'A" POTTED SPECIMEN PLANTS

One species of cactus
Seeding cactus
Grafted cactus
Crested cactus — own root

One species of a Succulent plant other than Cactus
Desert Trees and Shrubs. One species potted.

COLLECTIONS OF POTTED PLANTS

Cacti, at least five species
Other Succulents, at least five species
Desert trees or shrubs, at least five species
Cacti, ten species or more
Succulents, ten species or more
Co
Co
Co
Co
Co

Co
Co
Co
Co
Co
Co
Co
Co
Co
Co
Co

ections of 5 plants of one genus — Cactus
ection of 5 plants of one genus — Succulents
ection of over 5 plants of one genus — Cactus
ection of over 5 plants of one genus— Succulents
ection of Cactus Grafts

ection of Chollas
ection of Prickly Pears
ection of Echinocereus
ection of Barrels
ection of Mammillarias
ection of Coryphanthas
ection of Epipyllums
ection of Cereanae
ection of Echinopsis
ection of Lobivias & Rebutias
ection of Crests

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

SECTION "C , DISH GARDENS (Accessories Permitted)

1. Dish garden 9" or less — Cactus

2. Dish garden 9“ or less — Succulents

3. Dish gardens 9" or less — Cactus and Succulents

4. Dish garden over 9" — Cactus

5 Dish garden over 9" — Succulents

6. Dish garden over 9" — Cactus & Succulents

7. Miniature Cacti in containers

8. Hanging Basket

9. Strawberry Jar 14'^ tall or less

10. Junior entries by schools. Juniors may enter in
any classification and will be judged separately.

SECTION "D". ARRANGEMENTS WITH ACCESSORIES

1 . Cacti for centerpiece

2. Succulents for centerpiece

3. Cacti and Succulents for centerpiece

4. Cacti with garden flowers as accessories

5. Succulents with garden flowers as accessories

6. Cacti, American Indian influence

7. Corsage of Succulents

8. Terrarium

9. Novelty container with Cacti

10. Novelty container with Succulents
1. Novelty container with Cacti and Succulents

12. Button Gardens

13. Arrangements with Dried Material

14. Miniature arrangements

JANUARY, 1955

SECTION "E", ROCK GARDENS. (Entries open to individuals.

Garden Clubs and Organizations; space must be
reserved in advance)

1 . Rock garden, not over 9 square feet

2. Rock garden over 10 square feet

SECTION "F'

1. Educational exhibits

Book exhibits

Water Colors — Oils — Pen & Ink

SECTION

UQU

Rarest Cactus

Rarest Succulent

Judges Scale of Points:

Maturity and condition of plant

Number of species in a collection

Staging

Correct labeling

100

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

NEW STAFF MEMBER

We are happy to announce the ap¬
pointment of Dr. James A. McZ:ieary as
our Senior Botanist. Dr. McCleary is
presently Associate Professor of Botany
at Arizona State College at Tempe and
he will continue in that capacity but will
also be at the Garden as often as his
duties at the College permit. He will
be here on Saturdays and Sundays reg¬
ularly.

Dr .McCleary’s first interest was the
club mosses but he has acquired a deep
interest in the Desert vegetation since
coming to Tempe and has used our Gar¬
den as a center for his study of the
succulent plants. As a result of those
studies an excellent course on succulent
plants was given by him at the College.

In October, Dr. McCleary and four of
his students made the first of four
planned trips to the bottom of the Grand
Canyon to study and record the flora of
that area.

The trips, made possible by a grant,
are designed to cover the area in each

of the four seasons and thereby to re¬
cord the plants of each season. Of par¬
ticular interest was an Agave, a single
leaf of which had been collected some
years ago but without flowers or fruit
and which varied considerably from any
species known to be indigenous.

The first expedition collected several
variations in Agaves to be grown in
cultivation for further study.

The Desert Botanical Garden has ac¬
cumulated a considerable number of
specimens of Agaves in the last ten
years but their determination will have
to await flowering and fruiting.

We have asked Dr. McCleary to take
the Agaves as his particular study with
the ultimate intention to monograph
them.

This project will take many years
and a great deal of cooperation from
such of our members who live in areas
where the Agave is indigenous or who
travel through such areas. His appeal
for assistance appears below.

/tda.v2 brsctcoss IVEsr. flowering in Pinys de Rosa Gaiden
Gerona, Spain. Fernando Riviere photo

JANUARY, 1955

A New Research Program At
The Desert Botanical Gardens

The Desert Botanical Garden is laun¬
ching a new, long-time research into
the Genus Agave. Even the common
name “Century Plant” is indicative of
the lengthiness of the problem. Mono¬
graphs on the “Agaves” of various ar¬
eas, such as that of Trelease “The Agaves
of Lower California” or Mulford’s
“Agaves of the United States” have ap¬
peared from time to time and Berger in
1915 published a book on the entire
genus. Since that time only scattered
articles have been written describing
new species or presenting new data on
distributional aspects of the group. It
is our plan to restudy the genus and to
bring information concerning it up to
date.

Members of the Garden staff will
attempt to obtain living specimens of
all species known from a number of
widely separated regions, plant them in
the garden, and then study them under
as near normal conditions as possible.
Since various species may live thirty-
five years, more or less, before flower¬
ing, this project will take considerable
time for completion but it is felt that

the time and effort spent will be even¬
tually justified.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty facing
anyone who attempts to do research in
classification of large and complicated
genera is the original step of obtaining
desirable specimens or materials. It is
hoped that the many friends of the gar¬
den will help at this point. You are in¬
vited to share in this work by collecting
Agaves and sending them to the Gar¬
dens. Living plants with not over eight
inches spread are the most desirable.
If you are making a collecting trip into
an area or live in a region where these
plants are located, we would appreciate
receiving several of them. Even the
same species of Agave from different
localities would be helpful especially if
any variation at all is shown. Certain
precautions are necessary, however.
Plants without sufficient data are use¬
less, particularly the exact location. The
scientific name would save a lot of
time for us, however, don’t withhold
the plant simply because the name is
not known to you. Perhaps we can
identify it. If nearby plants of the same

A prize winning arrangement in last year’s Cactus Show.
The center of interest is an Agave.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

species are in flower or fruit, include
specimens of these since identification
is based upon these portions primarily.
Photographs are often useful. Other in¬
formation such as time of flowering or
fruiting, color of flower or fruit, direc¬
tion of slope if on a hillside, soil condi¬
tions, amount of moisture available
during the year, amount of shade, etc.,
can be extremely helpful to the horticul¬
turist in locating a likely spot for its
continued growth and seeing that cli¬
matic condition are as nearly like the

original condition as possible.

When gathering the plants, be careful
in digging that the roots are not dam¬
aged. Wrap in several thicknesses of
dry newspaper and ship as quickly as
possible. Unlike the cacti, the Agave
cannot take prolonged drought nor can

the plant endure having the roots re¬
moved.

From time to time, information ac¬
quired from this study will be publish¬
ed in the Bulletin.

Agave cernua Berger flowering in “Pinya de Rosa” Garden
Gerona, Spain. Fernando Riviere photo

JANUARY, 1955

DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN

BOOK DEPARTMENT
P. O. Box 547 Tempe, Arizona

PACKAGED CACTUS PLANTS

Attractive packages with
cut cellophane packing.

Post-
Price age*

No.

5 year old

Saguaro Seedling

2” high

.50

.10

No.

Golden Barrel

.50

.10

No.

5 plants

1.00

.30

No.

10 plants

1.50

.40

No.

low

10 white spined

plants, collectors

items

3.00

.40

No.

15 large plants

2.50

.50

No.

16 still larger

plants

4.50

.60

No.

24 large plants.

many of flower¬

ing size

7.00

1.00

PRICKLY PEAR PRODUCTS

Prickly Pear Delight —

A Turkish delight type of
confection made from
prickly pear cactus fruits,
provocative flavor
Vz pound box .85 .25

1 pound box 1.60 .35

Prickly Pear Jelly —

4-12 oz. glasses in shipping
carton. A clear red jelly
of exceptional flavor 2.35 1.25

Kachinas

These dolls are made of drift wood,
always cottonwood root which has been
water-logged and sun dried. They are
.arved by hand and hand colored with
tempera paints and are each an accurate
reproduction of Hopi Indian Gods and
made by a Hopi-Abbott Sakiestewa.
We have many different Kachinas in
each price range.

Postpaid

21/2 inches high . 85

3 inches high _ 1.10

4 inches high _ 1.65

5 inches high _ 2.20

6 inches high _ 3.30

BOOK SUGGESTIONS: —

Postpaid

Arizona Cactuses; Marshall

paper binding, 2nd Edition 1.15

cloth binding, 1st Edition 1.85

A description of all the
species native to Arizona.

60 ills.

Cactaceae, Marshall & Bock
Only 2 more copies avail¬
able.

8.25

Succulent Plants, Marshall
Including 20 Viewmaster
reels. Viewmaster $2.00
extra and postage.

Now out of print: 4 copies
available.

10.00

Cactus for the Amateur

3.65

Succulents for the Amateur

3.65

Flowers of the Southwestern
Desert — Dodge

1.15

Flowers of the Southwestern
Mesas — Patraw

1.15

Flowers of the Southwestern
Mountains — Arnberger

1.15

Animals of the Southwestern
Deserts — Olin

1.15

Flowering Cactus — Carlson,

Avey & Proctor, 81 Color Plates, 34
black and white plates.

Trees & Shrubs of the South¬
western Desert — Benson
& Darrow

8.70

The Giant Cactus Forest and
Its World — Howes

7.70

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN o/ARIZONA*^^^^'

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Published and owned by the Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society, sponsors
of the Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona, P. O. Box 547, Tempe. Saguaroland
Bulletin attempts to promote the Garden and to provide information on the desert
plants and their culture. Subscription $3.00 per year, the subscription including
active membership in the Society and the Desert Botanical Garden. Issued 10 times
a year.

W. TAYLOR MARSHALL, Editor

Volume 9 February, 1955 No. 2

Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society

EXECUTIVE BOARD

Chairman of Board __ _ John H. Eversole Treasurer _ Tom Goodnight

President _ W. Taylor Marshall Secretary _ _ Angela Bool

Vice President _ Lou Ella Archer Chief Counsel _ _ William Elliott

BOARD MEMBERS

Edward L. Burrall Leslie J. Mahoney Mel Hinman

Reg Manning John H. Rhuart

Table of Contents

Editorial _ 15

Cover Plant, Toumeya _ 16

Mrs. Lou Ella Archer _ 16

Letter from John Palmer Rogers _ 18

Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona

STAFF

Director . . . W. Taylor Marshall

Senior Botanist . James A. McCleary, Ph.D

Superintendent . W. Hubert Earle

Curator of Herbarium . E. R. (Jim) Blakley

Garden open every day, except Monday, from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.

No charge for admission.

Lectures — Each Wednesday and Thursday — 3:30 P.M.
Thursday lecture illustrated with Kodachromes.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

EDITORIAL

This is the month of the Cactus Show
and this year’s show will be the eighth
annual one.

At this time the prospects for a good
show are very high and exceptional
interest has been shown by exhibitors.

The Phoenix Gazette will again co¬
sponsor the show so that full newspaper
coverage is assured. We are very happy
about our cordial relations with this
excellent newspaper.

Mr. Earle, the show manager, needs
additional volunteers to help out during
the show either as guards, hostesses or
aids at the sales tables. If you can
spare us a day or so of your time please
phone Mr. Earle, WH 5-8513, and ar¬
range to be here on a given day or part
of a day.

WILDFLOWERS

The rains of January may or may not
produce wild flowers but they have
caused a heavy increase in incoming
telephone calls for information on the
prospects of wild flowers.

We can only say that if the rains
continue in February, as predicted, and
the temperatures are moderate we
should have a nice showing of wild
flowers in March.

REPLANTING DESERT AREAS

We had a visit from Dr. Peter Duis-
berg of El Paso, Texas, who has become
deeply interested in the Cactaceae of
the United States and is a member of
the El Paso Club who will be hosts to
the Convention of the Cactus & Succu¬
lent Society of America this summer.

Dr. Duisberg has made the suggestion
that collectors of desert species of cactus
could make a valuable contribution to
the preservation of desert flora by
planting seeds of cactus species in fav¬
orable locations while collecting speci-
ments.

To be successful only seeds of species
endemic to the area should be planted
and the planting should be done in
areas of public land or on private land
with the owners permission.

This suggestion has considerable
merit and we will offer it for consider¬
ation at the next meeting of our Cacto-
maniacs.

INFORMATION

Your editor has received a letter from
Mr. John Palmer Rogers in which a
number of valuable suggestions of ex¬
tension of range for Arizona Cactuses
are noted and other interesting ecologi¬
cal facts are given for our information
on the next revision of “Arizona Cac¬
tuses.”

We thought the letter so interesting
and informative that we are printing it
in full for the use of our members.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

For the information of our members
we are also printing a complete schedule
of all of the planned special events for
the remainder of this winter season:
Thursday Afternoon Lectures At
3:30 P. M.

Subjects:

Feb. 3rd — Deserts of Texas and New
Mexico.

Feb. 10th — Cactus Flowers.

Feb. 17th — Wild Flowers, Trees and
Animals.

Feb. 24th — Cactus Show. No lecture.
March 3rd — Northern Arizona.

March 10th — Southern Arizona.

March 17th — Deserts of Texas and
New Mexico.

March 24th — Cactus Flowers.

March 31st — Wild Flowers, Trees and
Animals.

April 7th — Northern Arizona.

April 14th — Southern Arizona.

April 21st — Deserts of Texas and New
Mexico.

Last of Season.

Wednesday Afternoon Classes in
Appreciation of Desert Plants.

A series of 5 talks. Repeated 4 times
each year.

Feb. 2 — Lesson 4: Mesophytes and An¬
nuals.

Feb. 9 — Lesson 5: Review and Award¬
ing of Certificates.

FEBRUARY, 1955

Feb. 16 — No Lecture.

Feb. 23 — Cactus Show — No Lecture.
March 2 — Lesson 1: General Vegetation
of Deserts.

March 9 — Lesson 2: Succlent Plants.
March 16 — Lesson 3: Xerophytes.
March 23 — Lesson 4: Mesophytes and
Annuals.

March 30 — Lesson 5: Review and

Awarding of Certificates.

This is the last Lecture of this Sea¬
son — To be resumed next fall.

CACTUS SHOW

Opens Sunday, February 20th, at noon.
Feb. 21st to Feb. 27th, 10 A. M. to 5 P. M.
closing at 5 P. M. Sunday, Feb. 27th.
Exhibits in Administration Building.

Habitat of Toumeya papyracantha in the White Mountains of
Arizona. Note the Juniper Trees and the absence of Pine Trees.

COVER ILLUSTRATION

A plant of Toumeya papyracantha
(Engelmann) Br. & R. located by the
Hermanns last summer in a district
where they were not known to occur.

We print above a picture taken by
the Hermanns at the point of collection
of the plant illustrated on the cover

showing a typical terrain for Toumeyas.

Known locally as Arizona’s paper-
spined cactus, Toumeya papyracantha
is one of the most insignificant of cactus
plants but one of the most interesting
and curious.

MRS. LOU ELLA ARCHER

This month we introduce to our read¬
ers the Vice President of Arizona Cactus
and Native Flora Society, the sponsors
of the Desert Botanical Garden of Ari¬
zona.

Mrs. Archer is one of the original
Founder Members and was on the
Building Committee when the Admini¬
stration Building was planned.

On April 1st, 1946, Mrs. Archer was
at Camelback Inn and attended an il¬
lustrated lecture by our Director in
which he explained that the death of
Mrs. Webster and the terms of her will
necessitated a rapid build up of mem¬

berships in the Garden from the less
than 50 on the books to over 200 as
stipulated by her will.

Mrs. Archer came to the Garden the
next day and there purchased member¬
ships for 75 friends and her generosity
and the generosity of two other persons
made it possible for the Garden to
qualify for Mrs. Webster’s endowment.

Elected to the Executive Board in
1947, Mrs. Archer was elected to the
Vice Presidency by the Board and has
been continuously reelected because of
her helpful suggestions and generous
contributions in times of need.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Mrs. Archer presented us with our
first air conditioning and a wonderful
pest control device which is still in use.

In 1951 the entire roofs of the Ad¬
ministration Building, there are 7 sep¬
arate roofs, had to be replaced and the
roof drainage leveled and no funds were
available but Mrs. Archer came to our
rescue and donated enough not only to
care for the roof repairs but a surplus
which we used as the major part of
the cost of a new residence we were
erecting for our Superintendent. For
that reason the new residence was
named The Archer House.

Mrs. Archer has permitted the use
of her home for many Executive Board

Meetings and has always found time
from her many activities to help us
solve many of the problems that have
arisen.

In addition to her interest in the
Desert Botanical Garden, Mrs. Archer
is an active worker and contributor to
a Phoenix hospital and she is intensely
interested in several Garden Clubs and
exhibits in the Flower Shows where
she always collects many blue ribbons.

The Executive Board and our entire
membership have every reason to ap¬
preciate Mrs. Archer’s many kindnesses
and we are sure that she will be re¬
elected to the Board for many years in
the future.

A view of Archer House taken in the summer of 1954 when
we added the terrace in front of the residence.

FEBRUARY, 1955

LETTER FROM JOHN PALMER ROGERS

W. Taylor Marshall

Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona

P. O. Box 547

Tempe, Arizona

My dear Mr. Marshall:

For some time I have been using your
booklet, “Arizona’s Cactuses;” and I
believe that, as a result of a large num¬
ber of field trips to various parts of
Arizona and neighboring states in pur¬
suit of as much knowledge as I might
obtain through study of cactus plants
growing in their native haunts, I may
have come into possession of a few
facts which may be of interest to you
and to the Society which you represent.
Until his death a few years ago, I was a
friend of Dr. Forrest Shreve, who very
considerately guided me with great
helpfulness in the study which I was
undertaking. I am not a professional
scientist; and it is possible that the in¬
formation below is of less value and
of more common knowledge than I
realize; but I am passing it on to you
in the hope that it may be useful.

1. It seems to me that there are at
least two varieties, worthy of separate
recognition, of O. versicolor: the one,
which should probably be regarded as
the typical variety, which grows
throughout most of the recognized
range of the species, and has long-
persistent, plump, usually smooth, large¬
ly or entirely spineless fruits — and
branches which in many plants are
plump and largely or entirely lacking
in tubercles, except during prolonged
dry spells, when the joints contract,
with the consequent appearance of tu¬
bercles; and the other, which grows in
the region of the Tucson Mountains,
and has been classified as O. versicolor
by both Dr. Shreve and Alan Blackburn,
which has spiny, highly tuberculate
fruits, which quickly dry and fall to
the ground, and branches which are
always obviously tuberculate. This sec¬
ond variety bears some resemblance to
O. acanthocarpa var. ramosa, and I be¬
lieve it may possibly have evolved

therefrom; but the spines are far less
numerous than in the O. acanthocarpa
variety.

2. It seems to be the opinion of the
recognized authorities that typical E.
triglochidiatus is found in Arizona only
around Fort Defiance. I have found
plants which appear to me identical to
those which Dr. Benson found in that
area, growing in considerable profusion
around Ganado as well. In that region,
however, var. melanacanthus grows
also, and some specimens appear to be
a cross between the typical variety and
var. melanacanthus; but there are many
apparently pure specimens of the typi¬
cal variety. I strongly suspect from
the large number of typical plants I
have seen near and south of Ganado
without any extensive searching that
the species probably covers a consider¬
able portion of that part of the state.

3. I see from your booklet that you
have been unable to locate O. com-
pressa var. microsperma within Arizona.
I have seen what I am sure is this
variety growing southeast of Kanab,
Utah. I made a field trip in that area
several years ago, along the Utah-Ari-
zona line, during the course of which
I probably crossed and recrossed the
border several times. While I am un¬
able to say that I positively saw speci¬
mens on the Arizona side, I definitely
observed a sufficient number of plants
in the vicinity to cause me to assume
that they probably spread over into our
state at that point.

4. I understand that O. flavescens
is regarded as growing in the south¬
eastern portion of the Papago Indian
Reservation. A cactus identical to, or
at least closely resembling those already
recognized as belonging to this species,
is to be found in various locations
northeast of Tucson at the foot of the
Santa Catalina Mountains. The outside
of the fruit is pale red, the interior
yellowish green, and the flesh is ex¬
ceptionally delicious, resembling a nec¬
tarine in flavor and consistency. A

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Fig. 68. Mammillaria heyderi var. macdougallii (Rose) Benson.

R. C. Proctor photo.

FEBRUARY, 1955

variation appears in some specimens,
in which the fruit wrinkles and dries
as it matures, acquiring such an ap¬
pearance as to be utterly uninspiring
to the appetite, though it might be
edible in case of necessity.

5. I once happened upon a strange
grove of cactus plants in a small valley
of the Santa Catalina foothills. These
were a vertical prickly pear, with
joints similar to those of O. phaeacan-
tha, but short white spines on the upper
portion of each joint, the plants fre¬
quently reaching eight or ten feet in
height. I am still wondering whether
I may have encountered the type local¬
ity of O. toumeyi, especially since I
have seen other plants, similar though
not so tall, in other areas of the same
general vicinity, which I understand
constituted a portion of the range of
this formerly recognized species.

6. I believe that C. muehlenpfordtii
var. robustispina is regarded as having
a wide range in Pima and Santa Cruz
Counties. However, I have encountered
specimens in the vicinity of the Sierrita
Mountains and at the northern tip of
the Santa Rita Mountains, near the base
of Mt. Fagan, and nowhere else. I am
therefore wondering if juvenile speci-
ments of F. wislizeni have not been
mistaken for this variety, with a range
larger than it actually covers having
been assigned to it as a result.

7. It seems to me that the range of
E. fendleri var. robustus is considerably
larger than is usually supposed. My
impression is that this variety is con¬
stantly enlarging its range and becom¬
ing more plentiful, while var. rectispinus
is gradually disappearing. The latter
seems exceptionally susceptible to dam¬
age from trampling by cattle, and it
may be that this is the reason for its
gradual disappearance.

8. As a boy I frequently hiked in
the mountains, and I recall encounter¬
ing O. laevis frequently. Now I almost
never encounter pure specimens, though
I often observe plants at a distance
which appear to belong to this species.
Upon closer inspection, however, they

almost always turn out to be something
else, often var. Canada.

9. I wonder whether or not it is gen¬
erally known that in at least certain
areas in the western part of its range.

E. intertextus frequently grows entirely
without the spike-like central spine,
especially in the case of mature plants.

I do not know whether this species is
capable of crossing with E. pectinatus
var. rigidissimus or not; but if so, per¬
haps the plants without the spike-like
spine are the result of such a hybridiza¬
tion. In all other respects, however,
such specimens as I have seen have
had all the other characteristics of E.
intertextus.

10. In your booklet, you state that
E. erectocentrus is always a plant of
the valleys. I have also seen it growing
in considerable abundance in a vast
area of rocky, hilly country on the east
side of the Redington Pass in northeast
Pima County. Northwest of the village
of Redington, just above the San Pedro
Valley, is a concentration so dense as
to present a startling appearance, where
the plants grow in a profusion greater
than I have ever observed in the natural
groves of any other species of small
cactus, with the possible exception of
M. microcarpa.

11. In southeastern Pinal County
there grows a most peculiar opuntia,
which looks to me like a natural hybrid
of O. arbuscula and O. spinosior. The
joints are slender, like O. arbuscula, but
are spiny and tuberculate like O. spino¬
sior. These plants are definitely not
O. kleiniae var. tetracantha, nor are
they typical O. kleiniae, though they
bear some superficial resemblance to
the latter.

12. I do not know what degree of
importance you may attach to natural
hybrids; but I have seen the following,
which I do not believe are especially
common; (I realize that in some cases
you might not agree with my opinion as
to precisely which species may have
crossed to produce a given plant; but,
in any event, here are my opinions for
whatever they may be worth).

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Fig. 65. Coryphantha vivipara var. arizonica (Eng.) Marshall.

R. C. Proctor photo.

FEBRUARY

1955

A. O. leptocaulis and O. arbuscula,

with general plant structure resembling
the latter, but with flowers, especially
as to time and frequency of blooming,
resembling the former — and fruit like
that of O. leptocaulis except that it
usually does not turn red. . .

B. O. gosseliniana var. santa-rita

and O. Engelmannii — with joints re¬
sembling the former, but spines, both
in appearance and arrangement, resem¬
bling the latter. . .

C. O. fragilis and O. erinacea var.

hystricina, with spines similar to the
latter, but shape of plant like the for¬
mer. . .

D. A three-way cross of O. engel¬

mannii, O. phaeacantha, and O. com-
pressa var. macrorhiza. . .

E. A three-way cross of E. engel¬

mannii with E. engelmannii var. nich-
olii and E. fendleri var. robustus. . .

F. E. erectocentrus and E. intertex-
tus. . .

G. C. vivipara var. arizonica and the
small mammillaria (I do not know its
name) which grows in such profusion
in western Colorado and eastern Utah.

13. Concerning M. oliviae and the
question of whether or not it deserves
recognition as a separate species, I have
watched a specimen which was appar¬
ently M. oliviae turn rather rapidly,
for no obvious reason, into a perfectly
conventional M. microcarpa; also I have
observed a three-headed specimen
growing from a single root: two heads
had the characteristics of M. oliviae,
while the third head appeared to be
M. microcarpa. I cannot help wonder¬
ing whether perhaps M. lasiacantha, M.
oliviae, and M. microcarpa may not
represent, in reality, three stages of
development of what is really one spe¬
cies, with most plants reaching the third
stage rapidly, but a few remaining in
either the first or the second stage. In
any event, M. oliviae seems to be most
frequently encountered in the Rincon
Valley of eastern Pima County; in some
localities there it is plentiful and grows
to a considerable size.

14. In the Molina Basin of the Santa

Catalina Mountains I have encountered
a grove of hedgehog cacti which appear
different from the common E. fendleri
var. robustus normally found near Tuc¬
son. I do not desire to give a definite
opinion concerning these until such
time as I have an opportunity to study
them further; but my first impression
of these was that, despite their location,
they were remarkably close in their
characteristics to typical E. fendleri.

15. Before closing I desire to relate
a tale so strange that you may well find
it unbelievable; however, I have definite
knowledge, as distinguished from rumor
or hearsay, that the story is true: A
considerable time ago a section of hori¬
zontal cactus root was brought from
near Flagstaff to a locality near Tucson
and there planted; from the root grew
several small prickly pear joints, all
too small to permit definite identifica¬
tion as to species; in due course the root
and its attached joints grew larger —
until, for entirely extraneous reasons,
it became necessary to transplant the
entire unit a second time, on which
occasion the root was accidentally
broken into three parts, each with one
joint attached thereto; after this trans¬
planting the joints were permitted to
grow undisturbed until ultimately three
complete plants had been produced, each
possessing a number of joints; none has
to this date blossomed, but to all ap¬
pearances each plant belongs to a dif¬
ferent species — one is O. compressa
var. macrorhiza, complete with bluish
cast on the joints, white spines on their
upper portion, and tendency of the
joints to wither and collapse on the
ground during cold weather; the second
is identical with O. engelmannii as
found in its commonest form around
Tucson; while the third resembles O.
megacantha more than anything else,
although I am well aware that the lat¬
ter is not regarded as an Arizona
species.

I hope that you have not found this
recital too boring, and that at least
some bits of information which I have
enumerated here may prove of use to

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

you and to the Society with which you
are associated.

Sincerely yours,

John Palmer Rogers.

Fig. 47. Echinocereus fendleri var. rectispinus (Peeples) Benson.

Geo. Olin photo.

FEBRUARY, 1955

DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN

book department
P, O. Box 547 Tempe, Arizona

PACKAGED CACTUS PLANTS

Attractive packages with
cut cellophane packing.

Post-
Price age*

No.

5 year old
Saguaro Seedling
2” high

.50

.10

No.

Golden Barrel

.50

.10

No. 3

Old Man of
Andes.

.50

.10

No. 5

5 plants

1.00

.30

No. 10

10 plants

1.50

.40

No. low

10 white spined
plants, collectors
items

3.00

.40

No. 15

15 large plants

2.50

.50

No. 16

16 still larger
plants

4.50

.60

No. 24

24 large plants,
many of flower¬
ing size

7.00

1.00

PRICKLY PEAR PRODUCTS

Prickly Pear Delight —

A Turkish delight type ol
confection made from
prickly pear cactus fruits,
provocative flavor
1/2 pound box -85 .25

1 pound box 1-60 .35

Prickly Pear Jelly —

4-12 oz. glasses in shipping
carton. A clear red jelly
of exceptional flavor 2.35 1.25

Kachinas

These dolls are made of drift wood,
always cottonwood root which has been
water-logged and sun dried. They are
carved by hand and hand colored with
tempera paints and are each an accurate
reproduction of Hopi Indian Gods and
made by a Hopi- Abbott Sakiestewa.
We have many different Kachinas in

each price range.

ly-i inches high...

3 inches high -

4 inches high -

5 inches high —

6 inches high

Postpaid

. 85

1.10

_ 1.65

2.20

_ 3.30

book SUGGESTIONS:—

Po-stpaid

Arizona Cactuses; Marshall

paper binding, 2nd Edition 1.15

cloth binding, 1st Edition 1.85

A description of all the
species native to Arizona.

60 ills.

Cactaceae, Marshall & Bock
Only 1 more copy avail¬
able.

Succulent Plants, Marshall
Including 20 Viewmaster
reels. Viewmaster $2.00
extra and postage.

Now out of print: 2 copies
available.

Cactus for the Amateur 3.65

Succulents for the Amateur 3.65

Flowers of the Southwestern

Desert — Dodge 1-15

Flowers of the Southwestern

Mesas — Patraw 1.15

Flowers of the Southwestern

Mountains — Arnberger 1.15

Animals of the Southwestern

Deserts — Olin 1.15

Flowering Cactus — Carlson,

Avey & Proctor 7.70

Trees & Shrubs of the South¬
western Desert — Benson
& Darrow 8.70

The Giant Cactus Forest and

Its World — Howes 7.70

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Published and owned by the Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society, sponsois
of the Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona, P.O. Box 547, Tempe. Saguaroland
Bulletin attempts to promote the Garden and to provide information on the desert
plants and their culture. Subscription $3.00 per year, the subscription including
active membership in the Society and the Desert Botanical Garden. Issued 10 times
a year.

W. TAYLOR MARSHALL, Editor

Volume 9 March, 1955 No. 3

Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society

EXECUTIVE BOARD

Chairman of Board . John H. Eversole Treasurer . Tom Goodnight

President . W. Taylor Marshall Secretary . Angela Bool

Vice President . Lou Ella Archer Chief Counsel . William Elliott

BOARD MEMBERS

Edward L. Burrall Leslie J. Mahoney Mel Hinman

Reg Manning John H. Rhuart

Table of Contents

Editorial . 27

8th Annual Cactus Show . 27

Awards . 29

All Pictures in This Issue by R. S. Brecheisen
and John H. Eversole

Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona

STAFF

Director _ W. Taylor Marshall

Senior Botanist _ James A. McCleary, Ph.D.

Superintendent _ W. Hubert Earle

Curator of Herbarium _ E. R. (Jim) Blakley

Garden open every day, except Monday, from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.

No charge for admission.

Lectures — Each Wednesday and Thursday — 3:30 P.M.
Thursday lecture illustrated with Kodachromes.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

EDITORIAL

ELECTIONS

As provided for in the By-laws of the
Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Soci¬
ety, I, W. Taylor Marshall, President,
did appoint August Hermann, Sylvia
Hermann and K. R. S. Fisher, all mem¬
bers in good standing, as a nominating
committee for the Society this 1st day
of Feb., 1955.

W. Taylor Marshall,

President.

We, the members of the nominating
committee of the Arizona Cactus and
Native Flora Society, do nominate Lou
Ella Archer, Angela Bool and William
Eliot to succeed themselves as members
of the Executive Board for the next
four years.

August Hermann
Sylvia Hermann
K. R. S. Fisher.

In accordance with the nominations
of the proper committee we enclose with
this issue of Saguaroland Bulletin Post
Card Ballots for each member of the
Society in good standing according to
our By-laws.

Please vote by marking the ballot for
3 candidates or by writing in additional
selections in the space provided.

Ballots should be returned before the
April 17th 1955 Annual Meeting.

The Annual Meeting of the Arizona
Cactus and Native Flora Society will be
held in the Webster Auditorium of the
Desert Botanical Garden at 3:30 P. M.
on Sunday, April 17th, 1955.

This is in compliance with the By¬

laws of the Society for a meeting on the
third Sunday of April of each year.

Angela Bool,

Secretary.

At the Annual meeting additional
nominations may be made from the
floor for the offices to be filled.

Reports of progress and finances will
also be presented at the meeting for the
information of our members.

Color in Saguaroland Bulletin: —

We are negotiating for the use of 10
color cards 31/2x23^ of Cactus plants
in flower made from R. C. Proctor’s
Kodachromes to be tipped in ten issues
of our Bulletin. The story of the plant
illustrated and a list of locations in
which each plant can be seen in nature
will accompany each plate.

We hope to start their use with the
April issue if the cards are available by
then, otherwise we will start with the
May issue.

Cactus Show Report: —

In order that we may bring you the
record of winners in the Cactus Show
and pictures of some of the Cactus Show
activities we will hold this March issue
up for one week.

Last year the Show report was not
given until the April issue and this was
much too late and we then resolved to
have the Show report in the March
issue for the future.

We express our appreciation to Mr.
R. S. Brecheisen of the Cactus Lumber
Company and to John H. Eversole who
took the pictures at the show which
we reproduce in this issue.

THE 8th ANNUAL CACTUS SHOW

They came in cars, trucks, on foot,
horseback, bicycle and scooter. They
came by the thousands, as a matter of
record, nearly 5,000 persons attended
the 8th Annual Cactus Show on the
opening day last Sunday, Feb. 20th, held
in the Auditorium of the Desert Botan¬
ical Garden. As this is being written
on the 2nd day of the Show all evidence

points to this being the largest attended
show to date.

Twenty-eight exhibitors have entered
over 120 entries to make this Show the
best yet in quality.

Ken Fisher of Mesa, Arizona, won
sweepstakes in total points followed by
Mrs. Harold Covert, Phoenix, Mrs. R. I.
Turner, Phoenix, Fred McClure, Phoe-

MARCH, 1955

Gargoyles are found on the outer walls of old European Cathedrals, but
in an Indian Type Building they are sometimes found seated at a desk.
Your editor here disproves the statement of our staff: “He has a nice
even disposition — he is mad all of the time.”

The extreme simplicity and blend¬
ing colors of this entry by Dick
Landis made this a cup winner.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

nix, and Mrs. Gladys Prophet, Scotts¬
dale.

The co-sponsors of the Show, The
Phoenix-Gazette, thru their reporters
and photographers have given us ex¬
cellent daily stories and pictures while
the Tempe Daily News, The Arizonian,
Scottsdale, and the Arizona Republic
have also given us good coverage.
KPHO TV station gave us an excellent
announcement last week. All of this
publicity is certainly reflected in the
larger attendance to date.

Great credit is to be given to the 35
members of our Society and the 24
students of Dr. J. McCleary’s Botany
class of Arizona State College, Tempe,
who volunteered from a day to 8
days of their time to further the success
of the Show. These volunteers served

as guides, guards, hostesses, salesper¬
sons, helped direct traffic, issued camera

permits and helped in numerous other
ways. The Garden’s staff of 5 mem¬
bers would have been trampled under¬
foot except for the excellent aid of the
following volunteers: — Mrs. Harold
Covert, Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Thomas, Jr.,
Mr. and Mrs. Fred Parrott, Mr. and
Mrs. A. Hermann, Mrs. Ralph Baird,
Mrs. G. R. Probert, Mrs. Clarence
Oskins, Mrs. Nola Belford, Mr. and Mrs.
Ken Fisher, Miss E. Kemp, Mr. C. C.
Pidgeon, Mr. L. F. Brady, Mrs. J. Spurr,
Mr. John Hales, Mr. Wm. Rand, Mr.
Fred McClure, Mr. John Weber, Miss
Helen A. Dunn, Miss Marion Northway,
Mrs. Agnes Faucett, Miss Frye, Mrs.
Van Syckle, Mrs. Chas. Mieg, Mrs.
Cochrane, Mrs. J. Birchett, Mr. and Mrs.
Manuel Diaz and Mr. George Purdy who
generously gave the Show 8 full days
of his time.

Trophies were awarded to the follow¬
ing winners: —

RESULTS OF 8th ANNUAL CACTUS SHOW

Awarded Trophy Cups

Listing of Awards in the Following Classifications
Sweepstakes — Ken Fisher, Mesa, Ariz.

Rarest Cactus — Ken Fisher, Mesa, Aricarpus Kotschubeganus
cristata.

Rarest Succulent Other Than Cactus — Wm. F. Rand
Haworthia truncata.

Cacti, at least five species — Mrs. Gladys Prophet, Scottsdale.
Individual Succulent — Euphorbia — Fred McClure.

Collection of Mammillarias — Ken Fisher, Mesa.

Arrangement with Accessories Using Cactus — Mrs. R. I. Turner.
Arrangement — Dick Landis

Arrangement of Cactus, American Influence —

Mrs. Harold Covert.

Listing of Ribbon Awards in the Following Classifications
Section “k" Potted Specimen Plants
One Species of Cactus —

First Ken Fisher, 2nd and 3rd Mrs. Gladys Prophet.

MARCH, 1955

Euphorbia pseudocactus is attached
to the hip bone.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Various arrangements before the judging. Color pictures are needed

to show the true beauty of these entries.

An interesting use of the skeleton
of a cholla cactus.

The Judges at work. Left to right judges: W. Taylor Marshall and
Herbert Bool. Clerks: John Hales and William Rand.

MARCH, 1955

Seedling Cactus — 1st Fred McClure
Grafted Cactus — 1st & 2nd — Ken Fisher.

Crested Cactus — own root —

1st & 2nd Ken Fisher, 3rd Mrs. Gladys Prophet.

One Species of a Succulent Plant other than Cactus

1st Fred McClure, 2nd Wm. Rand, 3rd Mrs. G. R. Probert.

Desert Trees and Shrubs — 1st Manuel Diaz.

Section "B" Collections of Potted Plants

Cacti, at least five species

1 st Mrs. Gladys Prophet, 2nd, Ken Fisher, 3rd, J. B. Hales.

Cacti, ten species or more

1st Ken Fisher, Special Fred McClure.

Collections of 5 plants of one genus — cactus

1st Ken Fisher, 2nd John Hales, 3rd Fred McClure.
Collections of 5 plans of one genus — Haworthias
IstWm. Rand.

Collection of Ariocarpus — Ken Fisher 1st.

Collectio nof Echinocactus — Ken Fisher 1st.

Collection of Espostoa — Ken Fisher 1st.

Collection of Barrels — Ken Fisher 1st.

Collection of Mammillarias — Ken Fisher 1st, J. B. Hales 2nd.
Collection of Coryphanthas — Ken Fisher 1st.

Collection of Echinomastus — Ken Fisher 1st.

Mrs. Harold Covert entered this
basketware horse and peon.

SAGUAROLAND BULLRTIl^

A winning entry by
Mrs. R. 1. Turner.

Collection of Thelocactus — Ken Fisher 1st.

Collection of Crests — Ken Fisher 1st, J. B. Hales 2ncl,

Fred McClure 3rd.

Section “C Dish Gardens

Dish Garden 9" or less — cactus — Junior, 1st Alice Foster.

Dish Garden 9“ or less — succulents — 1st Laura Nixon.

Dish Garden 9“ or less — cactus & succulents — 2nd Sally Feese.

Dish Garden over 9" — cactus — 3rd John Hales.

Dish Garden over 9“ — succulents — 1 st Mrs. Gladys Prophet.

Miniature Cacti in containers — 1st Mrs. Harold Covert;

Junior 1st Lynda Lee Covert.

Hanging Basket — 1st Mrs. Harold Covert.

Junior Entries by Schools — Special Award — Yowanedo
Camp Fire Girls — Rossevelt School.

Section ''D" Arrangements with Accessories

Cacti for centerpiece — 1st Mrs. R. I. Turner, 2nd Mrs. Harold
Covert, 3rd Dick Landis, Junior 1st Dolores Larson.

Succulents for centerpiece — 1st Dick Landis, 2nd Mrs. Harold
Covert, 3rd Dick Landis, Junior 1st Cissy Taylor.

Cacti & Succulents for centerpiece — 1st Mrs. R. I. Turner, 2nd
Mrs. Harold Covert. Junior 1st Cissy Taylor, 2nd Bee-
Bop Hobby Club.

MARCH, 1955

Cacti with garden flowers as accessories — 1 st Mrs. R. I. Turner.
Succulents with garden flowers as accessories — 1 st Mrs. Sylvia
Hermann, 2nd Mrs. R. I. Turner.

Cacti, American Indian Influence — 1st & 2nd Mrs. Harold

Covert.

Novelty container with cacti — 1st Mrs. R. I. Turner. Junior 1st
Janet Martian ,2nd Lynda Lee Covert, 3rd Eunice Porris.
Novelty container with succulents — 1st Mrs. R. I. Turner, 2nd
Dick Landis, 3rd Mrs. Harold Covert.

Novelty container with cacti & succulents — 1 st Mrs. R. I. Turner,
2nd Sally Feese, 3rd Mrs. R. S. Probert. Junior 1st Lynda

Lee Covert.

Button Gardens — 1st Mrs. Sylvia Hermann. Junior 1st
Kathy Smith.

Arrangements with Dried Material — 1st Mrs. Sylvia Hermann.

Special Mrs. Harold Covert, 3rd Mrs. R. I. Turner.
Miniature arrangements 1st and 2nd Mrs. Harold Covert.
Junior 1st & 2nd Eunice Porris, 3rd Lynda Lee Covert.
Section Educational Exhibits
1st Mrs. Nora Belford, Special Fred McClure.

Water colors or oils — 1 st Mrs. Sylvia Hermann.

Black & White photographs — 1st & 2nd Howard Soule,

Another table of exhibits which consists mostly of entries of individual
specimens. The plants entered this year were more nearly perfect and

were more tastefully displayed.

34 SAGUAROLAND BULLETIINf

West end of Auditorium showing a group of crested plants and an entry
of a collection of Mammillarias and one of Ferocacti.

Another Dick Landis arrangement
which was notable for its perfect
color combinations.

MARCH, 1955

DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN

BOOK DEPARTMENT
P. O. Box 547 Tempe, Arizona

PACKAGED CACTUS PLANTS

Attractive packages with
cut cellophane packing.

Post-
Price age*

No. 1 5 year old

Saguaro Seedling

2” high

.50

.10

No.

Golden Barrel

.50

.10

No.

Old Man of
Andes.

.50

.10

No.

5 plants

1.00

.30

No.

10 plants

1.50

.40

No.

low

10 white spined
plants, collectors
items

3.00

.40

No.

15 large plants

2.50

.50

No.

16 still larger
plants

4.50

.60

No.

24 large plants,
many of flower¬
ing size

7.00

1.00

PRICKLY PEAR PRODUCTS

Prickly Pear Delight —

A Turkish delight type of
confection made from
prickly pear cactus fruits,
provocative flavor

1/2 pound box .85 .25

1 pound box 1.60 .35

Prickly Pear Jelly —

4-12 oz. glasses in shipping
carton. A clear red jelly
of exceptional flavor 2.35 1,25

BOOK SUGGESTIONS:—

Postpaid

Arizona Cactuses; Marshall

paper binding, 2nd Edition
cloth binding, 1st Edition

A description of all the
species native to Arizona.
60 ills.

1.10

1.85

Cactus for the Amateur

3.90

Succulents for the Amateur

3.90

Flowers of the Southwestern
Desert — Dodge

1.15

Flowers of the Southwestern
Mesas — Patraw

1.15

Flowers of the Southwestern
Mountains — Arnberger

1.15

Animals of the Southwestern
Deserts — Olin

1.15

Flowering Cactus — Carlson,
Avey & Proctor

7.70

Trees & Shrubs of the South¬
western Desert — Benson
&- Darrow

8.70

The Giant Cactus Forest and
Its World — Howes

7.70

Kachinas

These dolls are made of drift wood,
always cottonwood root which has been
water-logged and sun dried. They are
carved by hand and hand colored with
tempera paints and are each an accurate
reproduction of Hopi Indian Gods and
made by a Hopi-Abbott Sakiestewa.
We have many different Kachinas in
each price range.

Postpaid

21/2 inches high . 85

3 inches high _ 1.10

4 inches high _ 1.65

5 inches high _ 2.20

6 inches high _ 3.30

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

^DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN o/ARIZONA^^^^

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

W. TAYLOR MARSHALL, Editor

Volume 9 April, 1955 No. 4

Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society

EXECUTIVE BOARD

Chairman of Board . John H. Eversole Treasurer . Tom Goodnight

President . W. Taylor Marshall Secretary . Angela Bool

Vice President . Lou Ella Archer Chief Counsel . William Elliott

BOARD MEMBERS

Edward L. Burrall Leslie J. Mahoney Mel Hinman

Reg Manning John H. Rhuart

Table of Contents

Editorial — - - 39

Meet John Rhuart — - - 40

Yucca elata - 42

Mammillaria microhelia Werdermann _ 44

Coues’ senna. Cassia covesii - - — 46

Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona

STAFF

Director . _ W. Taylor Marshall

Senior Botanist James A. McCleary, Ph.D.

Superintendent .. _ - _ W. Hubert Earle

Curator of Herbarium E. R. (Jim) Blakley

Garden open every day, except Monday, from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.

No charge for admission.

Lectures — Each Thursday, 3:30 P. M. — Until April 21
Illustrated with Kodachromes.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

EDITORIAL

The Annual Meeting of the Arizona
Cactus and Native Flora Society, Inc.,
will be held on Sunday, April 17th, the
third Sunday in April at 3:30 P. M.

Members within reach should attend
this meeting to hear the report of the
year’s activities and to participate in
the election of three members of the
Executive Board.

The post-card ballots have been slow
in reaching us as only 67 have been
received up to March 20th. Please mail
in your ballot if you have not done so
as yet.

We acknowledge, with gratitude, the
gift of another herbarium case by
Charles Mieg valued at $200.00. It was
badly needed as our present cases are
well filled and we have many more
sheets to file.

We have at several times mentioned
the destruction of our signs by vandals
but we have just had one destroyed
without malice by a mother who left
her infant child in her very modem car
on our parking lot.

The car was equipped with an auto¬
matic transmission which failed to act
and the car rolled backward into the

high bed around the Saguaro in the
center of the inner parking lot. There
was, fortunately, no harm to the child
but another $30.00 sign of ours was
damaged almost beyond repair and a
heavy iron post supporting it was snap¬
ped off at ground level (see picture).

SALES OF PLANTS

Many of our members have written
us to enquire the prices of specimen
plants. Apparently such members think
that we can sell the plants from our
collection but this is not true.

All our plants are here for study and
each has a complete history of its col¬
lection date, collector, location and alti¬
tude of location and a description of the
soil conditions and plants associated
with it.

They are here to help us solve intri¬
cate taxonomic questions and if we have
a number of plants of the same species
they were collected at various habitats
and must be grown for many years un¬
der observation for possible changes in
form or spination due to movement to
new environment and differing soil and
moisture conditions.

Another expensive sign is destroyed. No casualties, fortunately.

APRIL, 1955

You may say that each of our plants
is growing under controlled conditions
to add something to our knowledge of
the desert plants generally.

Therefore the only plants we offer
for sale are those commercially grown
and packaged plants listed on our back
cover.

Specimen Cactus plants and some
specimen Succulents can be purchased
by mail from:

Sandyland Cactus Nursery, 2735 E.
Camelback, Phoenix, Ariz.

Gates Cactus, Inc., P. O. Box 247,
Corona, Calif.

Johnson Cactus Nursery, Paramount,
Calif.

The last two issue catalogues. Gates
may be obtained without cost but John¬

son, who has a much larger one with
colored illustrations, makes a charge
for his catalogue.

We have found all three very reliable.

Doubtless there are many other grow¬
ers of Cactus seedings who are both
good growers and reliable merchandis¬
ers but we list the above because of our
intimate knowledge of their products
and business methods.

For Epiphyllums and Hawothias we
can with equal confidence recommend:

Beahm’s Nursery, 2686 E. Paloma St.,
Pasadena, Calif.

Our sincere thanks to Herman
Schroeder for a 40-inch plant of
Espostoa, the “Old Man of the
Andes.”

MEET JOHN RHUART

John Rhuart has been a member of
our Executive Board since his appoint¬
ment in 1951 and he has proved to be
a most valuable addition to our “brain
trust.”

He has a most pleasing personality
and is quietly observant, seldom taking
part in preliminary discussion, but he
listens and digests the opposing argu¬
ments and then quietly comes up with
a valuable suggestion.

He is a natitve Arizonian and the son
of a pioneer family. He was educated
at Phoenix Junior College and the Uni¬
versity of Santa Clara in California.
He enlisted in the U. S. Army and serv¬
ed from 1942 to 1946 in the Recruiting
Service in Arizona.

Since 1946 he has been Real Estate

Loaning Officer of the Valley National
Bank and is now an Assistant Vice
President of that institution.

Besides being the youngest board
member of our organization he is a
member of Phoenix Country Club, Val¬
ley Field Riding and Polo Club, Arizona
Pioneer’s Historical Society, Phoenix
Humane Society, Arizona Humane As¬
sociation, Arizona Territorial Sons and
Daughters, Knights of Columbus, Phoe¬
nix Fine Arts Association and the
Phoenix Iris and Daylily Club of which
he was president in 1954.

John is just another example of the
civic-minded, men and women of high
integrity who constitute the governing
board of your Society of which you can
be justly proud.

REPRINTED FROM

NEW ZEALAND CACTUS & SUCCULENT JOURNAL

Lapsus Linguae. An unconscious but
quite understandable “faux pas” by one
of our lady members provided a real
pear of wisdom which we feel should
now be shared by others.

“One of the known causes of mon-
strose and cristate forms of plants is

bombardment by cosmetic rays!”

We have known cases of a few men
going a bit “off form” too from these
same rays!

This cosmic sphere can well do with
more comic rays these days.

— A. Bruce.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

YUCCA ELATA ENGELMANN
SPANISH BAYONET - SOAPWEED - PALMILLA

The Yuccas are always prominent
features of the vegetation of all of the
Southwestern States. Many of them
are medium sized trees, as is the one
illustrated, but even the shrub-like
species such as Yucca glauca of the
Great Plains become important when
the inflorescence of creamy white flow¬
ers are on the plants.

Yucca elata Engelmann attains a
height of six to fifteen feet and the
inflorescence extends about 6 feet above
the plant. While thought of by many
as a species of Cactus the Yuccas are
actually members of the Lily family
even though far removed from the herbs
developed from bulbs or corms and fea¬
tured in many gardens.

In much of the Mojave Desert and in
Texas and New Mexico the Yuccas are
the largest trees over much of the land¬

scape and New Mexico has selected the
Yucca as it’s State Flower.

Aside from the beauty of both plant
and 'flower the Yuccas have a promi¬
nent place in the economy of desert
people as the fibres of the leaves are
utilized for the manufacture of a coarse
cloth and types of rope. The roots of
many species are used as soap especially
as surgical soap and shampoos.

Both trunk and leaves contain chemi¬
cals that are used in medicine.

The fruits of the baccate species are
eaten either raw or roasted and are
important in the diet of the Navajo In¬
dians and other tribes.

In addition to their ornamental and
economic value the Yuccas provide the
outstanding example of mutual depend-
ance of a plant and an animal, called
symbiosis.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

The Yucca depends on a species of the
moth Pronuba for the pollination of its
flowers and the moth depends on the
Yucca fruits as a depository of eggs
which when hatched, produce larvae
which feed on some of the seeds in the
Yucca fruit.

When the flowers first open the moth
is attracted by the perfume of the flow¬
er and its white luminance in the desert
night and the female moth visits sev¬
eral flowers collecting a load of pollen
from each till it has a considerable
supply.

Then going to still another flower
the moth inserts its ovipositer through
the walls of the ovary of the Yucca
flower and deposits several eggs. As
payment for the board and lodging that
the plants supplies for her young the
moth then climbs to the top of the pistil
and places on it a supply of pollen
sufficient to pollinate the flower and
to assure seeds.

The complete story of this plant-
insect association was told in Reports
of the Missouri Botanical Garden by
Dr. C. V. Riley in 1892 and it has been
retold in Desert Plant Life Magazine
for December 1942 and in the Cactus
and Succulent Journal for June 1943.

Numerous other Magazines have also
featured the association from time to
time and the unique relationship loses
nothing by its frequent repetition.

Yucca elata, pictured in our color
plate, is found at altitudes from 2,000
to 6,000 feet in Arizona, New Mexico,
Texas and Sonora and Chihuahua,
Mexico.

Another Yucca which dominates the
landscape in the area it occupies is the
Joshua Tree shown in flower in our
garden in the first week of March.

The Joshua Tree is perhaps the larg¬
est of the Yuccas but is limited in its
range by altitude limitations as it is
never found below 2,000 feet according
to Benson in “Trees and Shrubs of
Southwestern Deserts.” We have never
observed them below 2,500 feet and
they usually range from 3,000 to 5,000
feet altitude.

We have been successful in establish¬
ing eight plants of over 50 plants we
brought in about 15 years ago as our
altitude here is about 1,200 feet. It then
required 15 years for them to reestablish
to the point that they produced flowers
for the first time this year.

Yucca brevitolia Engelmann, the
Joshua Tree, is found in California, Ne-

Flowers of the Joshua Tree.

APRIL, 1955

vada, Utah and in Arizona from Con¬
gress Junction northwest to Kingman
and Hoover Dam.

It is thought to be the oldest living
plant of the desert areas and some
botanists estimate that it may live as
long as 1,000 years. This js pure specu¬

lation as there are no tree rings to date
them and records of annual growth
rates at various ages are not recorded.

A Joshua Tree appears to bear flow¬
ers each second year but even this de¬
tail has not been confirmed.

The Joshua Tree, Yucca brevifolia Engelmann in flower in our gar¬
den. A crested plant of the Saguaro Cactus can be seen in the center
background. The shrub to the left is a Lycium or Wolf berry.

MAMMILLARIA MICROMELIA WERDERMANN VAR. MICRO-

HELIOPSIS (WERDMANN) BACKBERG

This charming little pincushion was
drs. described in 1930 from the State
of Queretaro, Mexico. It is still rather
rare in collections but its beauty en¬
titles it to a more widespread interest.

It is usually simple, cylindrical to 6
inches high and up to 2 inches in di¬
ameter. The nipples are arranged in

8 and 13 spirals and are short blunt
conic in shape.

The central spines on the species are
sometimes absent but may be as many
as 4 but are mostly 1 or 2, straight or
slightly curved. On the variety mi-
croheliopsis there are 6 to 8 central
spines and this constitutes the major

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

difference between the species and the
variety.

Radial spines are 30 to 50 and they
are bristle-like and shining yellow to
red brown at the base, flattened against
the body of the plant completely con¬
cealing it.

The cream to greenish flowers are
borne in a circle below the summit of
the plant and are followed by pale
green to whitish or pink fruit.

The specimen photographed came to
us from Gates Cactus, Inc., who grew
them from seed and presented this and
a number of other rare seedlings of

Mexican species at the time of and for
display in our Cactus Show.

Both the species and its variety have
been collected in the Sierra de San Mar¬
tin in the State of Queretaro, Mexico as
reported by Craig in “Mammillaria
Handbook” and this is the only exact
location that we can find recorded.

In its almost irridescent spines and
graceful form as well as its free flower¬
ing it assumes a place second only to

Mammillaria bombycina as your editor’s
choice for the most desirable species of
Mammillaria.

Mammillaria microhelia Werd. var microheliopsis (Werd.) Bckbg.

APRIL, 1955

PLANT OF THE MONTH

Coues’ senna, Cassia Covesii Gray

Bright yellow flowers against a back¬
ground of soft gray foliage indicate a
colony of Coues’ senna in our Garden.
The flowers are continuous from April
to October, in cultivation, which makes
this a most valuable native ornamental
which can be grown without effort in
desert country. Its culture in any mod¬
erate climate should not be too difficult
as it ranges into fairly cold districts
within our State.

It is an interesting shrub of one to
two feet high with but few branches,
the branches covered with soft, white
hairs. The leaves are compound with
the large leaflets in two or three pairs,
each leaflet up to an inch long and half
as wide, green, but so covered with
short, white hairs as to appear gray
and to feel like velvet to the touch.

The bright yellow flowers are borne
in racemes which arise in the leaf axils.
Each raceme bears six flowers, each
about one inch in diameter, and by the
time the upper flowers are opening
there are pods forming where the first
flowers appeared. These straight pods
split when ripe to release the numer¬
ous, pea-like seeds.

Cassia Covesii Gray is reported by
Jaeger as rare in California in dry
washes of the Colorado Desert but in
Arizona it can be found in Coconino,

(Reprinted from

Mojave, Yavapai, Greenlee, Maricopa,
Cochise, Santa Cruz and Pima Counties
at elevations of 1,000 to 3,000 feet. The
particular plants grown in our Garden
were collected in Paradise Valley.

Kearney and Peebles report the
flowering period as from May to
August but, as reported above, this per¬
iod is greatly extended when the plants
get more water and care. They are
easily grown from seed and have been
successfully grown from cuttings.

Cassia is a genus of mostly tropical
plants in the Legume family but two
hardy species are cultivated. Cassia
marylandica and C. Chamaecrista both
native to the New England States and
southward. C. artemisoides, introduced
from Australia, is in common use in
both California and Arizona. All of
the above as hedge plants. The best
known garden species is Cassia corym-
bosa, sometimes called C. floribunda,
an Argentinian species. Arizona boasts
nine species of Cassias, all interesting
and many of them perhaps as desirable
for garden use as our plant of the
month.

Cassia Covesii was named by Dr. Asa
Gray to honor Dr. Elliott Coues, a noted
ornithologist, who was stationed at Fort
Whipple in 1864 and who wrote “Birds
of the Colorado Valley.”

Saguaroland Bulletin, September, 1948)

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN

BOOK DEPARTMENT
P. O. Box 547 Tempe, Arizona

PACKAGED CACTUS PLANTS

Attractive packages with
cut cellophane packing.

Post-
Price age*

No. 1 5 year old

Saguaro Seedling

2” high

.50

.10

No.

Golden Barrel

.50

.10

No.

Old Man of
Andes.

.50

.10

No.

5 plants

1.00

.30

No.

10 plants

1.50

.40

No.

low

10 white spined
plants, collectors
items

3.00

.40

No.

15 large plants

2.50

.50

No.

16 still larger
plants

4.50

.60

No.

24 large plants,
many of flower¬
ing size

7.00

1.00

PRICKLY PEAR PRODUCTS

Prickly Pear Delight —

A Turkish delight type of
confection made from
prickly pear cactus fruits,
provocative flavor

Vz pound box .85 .25

1 pound box 1.60 .35

Prickly Pear Jelly —

4-12 oz. glasses in shipping
carton. A clear red jelly
of exceptional flavor 2.35 1.25

BOOK SUGGESTIONS:—

Postpaid

Arizona Cactuses; Marshall

paper binding, 2nd Edition 1.10

cloth binding, 1st Edition 1.85

A description of all the
species native to Arizona.

60 ills.

Cactus for the Amateur 3.90

Succulents for the Amateur 3.90

Flowers of the Southwestern
Desert — Dodge 1.15

Flowers of the Southwestern

Mesas — Patraw 1.15

Flowers of the Southwestern

Mountains — Arnberger 1.15

Animals of the Southwestern

Deserts — Olin 1.15

Flowering Cactus — Carlson,

Avey & Proctor 7.70

Trees & Shrubs of the South¬
western Desert — Benson
& Darrow 8.70

The Giant Cactus Forest and

Its World — Howes 7.70

Kachinas

These dolls are made of drift wood,
always cottonwood root which has been
water-logged and sun dried. They are
carved by hand and hand colored with
tempera paints and are each an accurate
reproduction of Hopi Indian Gods and
made by a Hopi-Abbott Sakiestewa.
We have many different Kachinas in
each price range.

Postpaid

21/2 inches high .

. 85

3 inches high

-- _ 1.10

4 inches high

. . 1.65

5 inches high

2.20

6 inches high . .

. - - . . - 3.30

APRIL, 1955

ANOTHER ADDITION TO THE ARIZONA FLORA

In our last issue we reported the
finding of Epithelantha micromeris in
the State for the first time. This dis¬
covery was made by Don Bryant, a
geologist, who has made many field
trips this summer. This same gentle¬
man located another species new to
the State in Mammillaria Wrightii which
was found by him in Apache County
about two miles west of the New Mexico
line.

In August we had another expedition
in northeastern Arizona to again at¬
tempt to relocate Toumeya Peeblesiana
and again our expedition failed in its

(Reprinted from Saguaroland

objective. It did, however, follow up
Mr. Bryant’s discovery and it collected
nine specimens of Mammillaria
Wrightii.

The plants were found under pine
trees or in the open in bunch grass
which they greatly resemble. One or
rarely two plants would be located on
each outcropping of a certain type of
gravel which made small mounds amidst
the red clayey soil of that district. An
indication of their rarety is that four
experienced collectors in our party
spent an entire day in the collection of
the few plants we located.

Bulletin, September, 1948)

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

W. TAYLOR MARSHALL, Editor

Volume 9

May, 1955

No. 5

Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society

EXECUTIVE BOARD

Chairman of Board . John H. Eversole Treasurer . Tom Goodnight

President . W. Taylor Marshall Secretary . Angela Bool

Vice President . Lou Ella Archer Chief Counsel . William Elliott

BOARD MEMBERS

Edward L. Burrall T.eslie J. Mahonev Mel Hinman

Reg Manning

Leslie J. Mahoney

John H. Rhuart

Table of Contents

Editorial - - - - -

The Saguaro Cactus - - - - - - . - . - - - - - 52

Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona

STAFF

Director _ W. Taylor Marshall

Senior Botanist - . James A. McCleary, Ph.D.

Superintendent _ W. Hubert Earle

Curator of Herbarium . .. E. R. (Jim) Blakley

Garden open every day in May except Monday, from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.

No charge for admission.

Open only Saturday and Sunday, 1 P.M. to 6 P.M., in June.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

EDITORIAL

April 30th marks the close of the 17th
fiscal year for the Desert Botanical Gar¬
den and the 9th year under the direc¬
tion of your editor.

In the first period of our history, from
1938 to 1941, considerable progress was
made in assembling a collection of des¬
ert plants under the direction of George
Lindsay and later of J. Fleming and
the Administration Building was erected
and dedicated in 1940 by Mrs. Webster
and her associates.

Then, during the war years, the plant
collection was allowed to disintegrate
through neglect and lack of understand¬
ing by the long succession of caretakers
who succeeded each other from 1941 to
1946 so that only the hardiest plants
were alive when the gardens were re¬
opened in December, 1946.

Since then we have extended the
plantings and buildings and built an
educational program which today makes
the Desert Botanical Garden a very
great attraction to Arizona’s visitors and
a distinct asset to the State.

This could not have been accom¬
plished by the unaided efforts of your
editor and it was made possible only
by the unselfish devotion of those civic
minded men and women who have acted
as Executive Board members and the
friendly advice and assistance of the
many other members of our Advisory
Board.

It is, therefore, with great pleasure
that we can report that the general
membership has recognized the value to
our organization of our incumbent
board members by reelecting them
unanimously at our Annual Meeting
held here on Sunday, April 17th.

Later that same day the Executive
Board in their April meeting reelected
the officers who served during last
year as listed on the front cover of this
issue of the Bulletin.

At the Annual Meeting a financial
report for the fiscal year was read by
me. They are based on complete figures
for the year except for the items mark¬
ed with an asterick(*) and figures so
marked are up to April 16th and will
be higher when the additional 14 days
receipts are added.

The profits on sales of merchandise
are based on an estimate of inventory
and may change somewhat when the
actual inventory is taken on April 30th
and the additional sales for the next

14 days are added.

The report is as follows:

INCOME

From Trust Fund _ $ 9,473.56

Contributions _ _ . _ 474.60*

Memberships _ 1,526.50*

Profits on Merchandise

(Gross) _ . 4,900.00*

Other income _ 150.00

Total _ . $16,524.66

EXPENDITURES

Salaries _ $11,624.00

Insurance _ 242.50

Utilities _ 685.52

Misc. Expense _ 2,981.57*

Capital Investments _ 802.55

Total _ _ $16,336.14

For the coming year our cost will
rise still higher due to increases in sal¬
aries for additional personnel and
higher utility costs to meet our ever in¬
creasing attendance.

We will have to have about $1,500
additional funds for the 1955-56 fiscal
year and this will have to come from
new memberships. We solicit your aid
in interesting new people in participa¬
tion in the Garden and its support.

We have been notified by the National
Science Foundation that our application
for assistance in our Agave research
project was one of a number of pro-

MAY, 1955

posals that their advisory panel of con¬
sultants approved as acceptable on the
basis of scientific merit, contingent upon
the availability of sufficient funds, but
that because of their budgetary limita¬
tions it has not been possible to acti¬
vate it.

This will mean that we will have to
conduct our research without financial
aid for the present and it will be very
much slower work.

We will assemble material from our
own collections this summer and the
collections to be made by three groups
of members who plan extended trips
into the Agave territory in the same
period. Perhaps we will get assistance
from other members who may plan
trips also and who will collect for us
small offsets of any species of Agaves
they may find growing under natural
conditions. Be sure to note carefully
the exact locations of the collections,
the altitude at the point of collection
and a note on the type of soil in which
the Agaves were growing and a list of
other plants that grew in the same loca¬
tion. *

Pictures of the plants in place, espe¬
cially if they are in flower or fruit and
dried flowers and fruits will aid in
identification.

We plan to attend the Convention of

the Cactus and Succulent Society of
America at El Paso from July 8th to 11th
but will not make the field trips on
July nth and 12th but will return to
the Garden to receive any of the mem¬
bers of the Convention who may stop
off at the Garden.

I will be at the Garden up to the
morning of July 7th and will return by
noon of July 12th and extend a cordial
invitation to all cactophiles to stop off
enroute to or from the Convention.

From the 7th to the 12th some mem¬
ber of the staff will be on hand to wel¬
come visitors in my absence.

An inquiry from a member as to the
number of copies of the Marshall books
that have been sold lead me to compile
a set of figures that were surprising
even to me.

I have written five books of full book
size of which 18,500 copies have been
sold, one 16 page booklet of which
35,000 have been sold and an edition
of 12,000 is now on the press and 42,000
copies of our 12 page Saguaroland Bul¬
letin in which all of the writing was
mine making 95,500 copies of my books
sold to date and 12,000 additions on
the press.

All royalties from my books since
1946 have gone to the Desert Botanical
Garden.

THE SAGUARO CACTUS
ARIZONA'S STATE FLOWER

The Saguaro Cactus was first ob¬
served by early missionaries to Sonora,
and what is now Arizona, about 1540
and was referred to by Humboldt in his
work on New Spain published about
that time.

It was not described scientifically un¬
til 1848 when Dr. George Engelmann
published it under the name Cereus
giganteus in a document prepared for
the United States Senate as Executive
Document 7 reporting Emory’s Military
Reconnaissance of Survey of the U. S. -

Mexican Boundary.

So outstanding is this plant that but
little confusion as to its identity has
arisen. Lemaire in 1862 published it
as Pilocereus engelmannii and Rumpler
accepted Lemaire’s classification as to
genus but retained Engelmann’s spe¬
cific name as Pilocereus giganteus.

Britton and Rose in 1908 observed
the difference in fruit structure and
flowering habit of our plant from that
of plants in the genera Cereus and Pilo¬
cereus and erected for it the genus

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Carnegiea in honor of Andrew Carnegie
who financed their investigation of the
Cactus family and the accepted name
today is Carnegiea gigantea (Engel-
mann) Britton & Rose.

Although the taxonomy of the plant
is relatively simple the morphology and
physiology are not too well known. Dr.
Forest Shreve who knew the plant well
wrote the following account of it for the

Fig. 39. Carnegiea gigantea (Eng.) B. & R.
group of plants photographed by R. C.

An unusual
Proctor.

MAY, 1955

Cactaceae of Britton and Rose:

“The geographical range of the sahu-
aro extends from the headwaters of the
Yaqui River in southern Sonora, north¬
ward to the southjern edge of the Colo¬
rado Plateau. In Sonora it is rarely
found more than 150 miles inland from
the coast of the Gulf of California, and
in southern Arizona its range follows ap¬
proximately the contour of 3,500 feet
on the east and north, and the lower
course of the Colorado River on the
west. It is found in California only in
three restricted localities on the Colo¬
rado River and reaches its northern
limit on that stream at a point about
40 miles north of the mouth of the
Bill Williams Fork.

The occurrence of the sahuaro is by
no means continuous throughout this
area, for it is never found in deep allu¬
vial soil and is relatively rare on the
nearly level plains in the drainages of
the Altar, Santa Cruz, and Gila rivers.
It is extremely abundant on coarse
detrital soils adjacent to the larger and
smaller mountains and is very common
wherever there is rock in place, ascend¬
ing the mountains in diminishing num¬
bers to an elevation of about 4,500 feet.
The absence of the sahuaro from allu¬
vial soils is undoubtedly related to the
adverse conditions of -soil aeration in
these areas, and possibly to the lack
of good mechanical support.

The localities in which the sahuaro
reaches its greatest size and abundance
are the uppermost portions of the slopes
adjacent to small mountain ranges and
hills, particularly where there is a
southern or southwestern exposure. In
localities of this sort throughout south¬
western Arizona, it reaches a height of
30 to 35 feet, which is very seldom ex¬
ceeded. Individuals of this size are
freely branched and often have a gross
weight of as much as 6 to 8 tons. In
the vicinity of Tucson branching begins
on attaining a height of about 15 feet,
but on the edges of the range of this
cactus branching individuals are rela¬

tively uncommon and the maximum
size is rarely reached.

The flowers of the sahuaro are borne
at the crown of the main trunk and the
lateral branches, usually appearing in
May, while the fruit matures some
weeks in advance of the summer rainy
season. The small seeds are borne in
great profusion, but are eaten by birds
and ants so rapidly that the crop is
seriously decimated before the requi¬
site conditions for germination occur.
The seeds germinate readily at the high
temperatures of the summer rainy sea¬
son, but the growth of the seedlings is
extremely slow, so that the end of the
second year finds them only one-fourth
of an inch in height, and at an age of
8 to 10 years they are still less than
4 inches high. The growth continues
to be slow up to a height of 3 feet or
more, so that individuals of that size
are approximately 30 years of age.
After reaching this size the growth rate
is rapidly accelerated until it reaches
a maximum of about 4 inches per year.
The largest individuals are 150 to 200
years of age.

The sahuaro appears to suffer from
very few diseases and natural enemies,
the greatest decimation in its numbers
being occasioned by mechanical agen¬
cies. When struck by lightning or
wounded in any other manner during
the dry season, it recovers very rapidly
by the formation of a heavy callus over
the wounded spot. If it is wounded in
the rainy season, however, bacterial de¬
cay sets in very rapidly and a large
plant may be destroyed in less than a
week as a result of a small wound. The
nests made in them by woodpeckers
are always lined by heavy callus and
appear to occasion no permanent injury.

The roots of the sahuaro are shallow¬
ly placed and widely extended, often
reaching the distance of 50 to 60 feet
from the base of the plant. The woody
tissue may be compared to a series of
bamboo fishing rods arranged parallel
to each other in the form of a cylinder.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

These woody rods increase in thickness
with the age of the plant, so that they
form a very substantial framework at
the base while they taper at the summit
to slender elastic rods. The fleshy tissue
is found both within and outside the
circle of the woody rods and the water
content of these two regions appears to
be the same. Determinations made
near the top of the plant indicate that
there is 98 per cent of water on the basis
of the net weight. There are great
fluctuations in the water content of the
tissue from season to season and it has
been shown that large quantities of
water are taken up during the rainy
seasons, particularly in May and June.
The sahuaro, like many other cacti, is
able by reason of its external form to
adjust its size to these fluctuations in
volume.

This plant is an extremely useful one
to the aborigines of its natural range.

The heavy rods are used as construction
material in building houses and en¬
closures, and the fruit and seeds are
used for making both food and drink
by the Papago and Pima Indians.”

To Dr. Shreve’s notes we add the fol¬
lowing observations made by the Gar¬
den Staff:

Branches: We believe that a normal
Saguaro in a favorable location is always
a single, unbranched stem. In the shel¬
tered canyons, especially in Organ Pipe
Cactus National Monument, the great
majority of the plants are simple while
in areas where the heavy plants are
exposed to heavy summer winds most
plants branch.

We believe that branching is a bal¬
ancing factor rather than the normal
growth process.

Of all the cactus plants of many spe¬
cies we have grown only the Saguaro
will not take roots when a branch is

MAY, 1955

The octopus Saguaro, an outstanding plant of Saguaro
National Monument. R. C. Proctor Photo.

removed and planted. All other species
we know will grow a new plant from a
cutting.

Seedlings: Dr. Shreve has not men¬
tioned that only those seeds which ger¬
minate under a bush or tree survive
the first summer. In the first season the
seedling is about the size of a pea and
any that germinate in open ground are
burned by the heat of the summer sun.

When seedlings germinate under a
shrub they remain out of sight for years
and become visible only when they

grow taller than the shrub or tree or
until the protective plant dies.

Growth rate: Our observations made
on a group of seedlings of various sizes
from 4 to 30 inches which we moved
and planted in a semicircle lead us to
believe that the annual growth might
be about V4 inch a year but actual
figures recorded by our Mr. Earle of
plants growing naturally in our Arizona
section where no watering is given and
absolutely normal desert conditions pre¬
vail show the following amazing results:

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

CHART OF GROWTH RATE OF 14 SAGUAROS FOR 6 YEARS

Growth

Rate

Per Year

Shown

in Inches

Height

1949

1950

1951

1952

1953

1954

1955

21/8 inches

1/2

11/2

1/4

6 inches

51/2

11/4

1/4

11/2

1/2

1/4

91/2

21/2

11/2

111/4

1/4

31/4

21/4

11/2

11/4

213/4

221/4

11/4

51/2

41/4

241/8

11/2

1/2

23/4

21/4

23/4

253/8

23/8

1/4

41/2

33/4

401/4

331/2

43/4

51/4

33/4

43/4

51/2

iy2

41/4

41/2

53/4

641/2

31/2

iy4

21/4

59 y4

51/2

53/4

51/4

731/2

51/2

11/4

51/2

31/4

761/2

651/4

23/4

91/4

33/4

105

101

21/2

8 1/2

101/4

93/4

149

Rainfall in inches

6.74

3.62

12.37

10.65

3.56

4.31

Saguaro in Flower. R. C. Proctor photo.

MAY, 1955

Saguaros in our parking lot
April, 1951.

Diseases: Dr. Shreve is correct in his
statement of the relative freedom from
disease by the Saguaro but they are oc¬
casionally destroyed by a necrosis in¬
troduced by a species of moth which
causes very rapid deteriation and death
in about 60 days. This is not new as
Dr. Brown thought but is one of the
natural controls of the Saguaro as we
see it.

The principal enemy of the Saguaro
is a two footed animal that first invaded
this territory about 1850.

More Saguaros are destroyed by mal¬
ice of men, who should know better,
than by any other cause.

Flowers: The white, night flower of
the Saguaro has been selected as the
Arizona State Flower. It is produced

in May and early June and e?ch llo ’O-
opens after nightfall and remains open
until about noon of the next day or in
cloudy weather until about 3 P. M. and
then closes forever. Each flower lasts
less than 24 hours.

The stamens of the flowers are very
numerous and as many as about 3,482
have been counted in a single flower
and the ovules are nearly as numerous,
nearly 1,980 having been counted in one
flower. Both sexes are included in each
flower.

Fruits: Saguaro fruits are ripe in June
and are then olive-green with a pink
blush, about 3 inches long and one inch
in diameter. When fully ripened the
fruits split into 2 or 3 or more segments
exposing the scarlet pulp and are then

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

The same Saguaros, April, 1955.

mistaken for red flowers.

The fruit is high in sugar content and
very palatable either fresh or preserved
or fermented into a wine.

It has been an important food item of
the Papago and Pima Indians, who date
their year from the fruiting of the plant
when a wine is prepared from the first
fruits harvested and used in their new

year festivities. Others of the fruits are
eaten raw as picked but the majority of
the crop is stored in clay pots for winter
use.

During June when we collect fruit to
extract the seeds the pulp ferments
within hours of the time it is collected
and our patio smells like a winery by
afternoon.

SPELLING OF SAGUARO
Suaharo - Suguaro - Sawarrow - Suwarro
Sahuaro - Zuwarro
THE FORM SAGUARO IS PROPER.

MAY, 1955

DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN

BOOK DEPARTMENT
P. O. Box 547 Tempc, Arizona

PACKAGED CACTUS PLANTS

Attractive packages with
cut cellophane packing.

Post-
Price age*

No. 1 5 year old

Saguaro Seedling

2” high

.50

.10

No.

Golden Barrel

.50

.10

No.

Old Man of
Andes.

.50

.10

No.

5 plants

1.00

.30

No.

10 plants

1.50

.40

No.

low

10 white spined
plants, collectors
items

3.00

.40

No.

15 plants

2.50

.50

No.

16 larger
plants

4.50

.60

No.

24 large plants,
many of flower¬
ing size

7.00

1.00

PRICKLY

PEAR PRODUCTS

Prickly Pear Delight —

A Turkish delight type of
confection made from
prickly pear cactus fruits,
provocative flavor

1/^ pound box .85 .25

1 pound box 1.60 .35

Prickly Pear Jelly —

4-12 oz. glasses in shipping
carton. A clear red jelly
of exceptional flavor 2.35 1.25

BOOK SUGGESTIONS:—

Arizona Cactuses; Marshall

Postpaid

paper binding, 2nd Edition
cloth binding, 1st Edition

A description of all the
species native to Arizona.
60 ills.

1.10

1.85

Cactus for the Amateur

3.90

Succulents for the Amateur

3.90

Flowers of the Southwestern
Desert — Dodge

1.15

Flowers of the Southwestern
Mesas — Patraw

1.15

Flowers of the Southwestern
Mountains — Arnberger

1.15

Animals of the Southwestern
Deserts — Olin

1.15

Flowering Cactus — Carlson,
Avey & Proctor

7.70

Trees & Shrubs of the South¬
western Desert — Benson
& Darrow

8.70

The Giant Cactus Forest and
Its World — Howes

7.70

Kachinas

These dolls are made of drift wood,
always cottonwood root which has been
water-logged and sun dried. They are
carved by hand and hand colored with
tempera paints and are each an accurate
reproduction of Hopi Indian Gods and
made by a Hopi-Abbott Sakiestewa.
We have many different Kachinas in

each price range.

Postpaid

21/2 inches high . 85

3 inches high _ 1.10

4 inches high _ 1.65

5 inches high _ 2.20

6 inches high _ 3.30

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Published and owned by the Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society, sponsors
of the Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona, P. O. Box 547, Tempe. Saguaroland
Bulletin attempts to promote the Garden and to provide information on the desert
plants and their culture. Subscription $3.00 per year, the subscription including
active membership in the Society and the Desert Botanical Garden. Issued 10 times
a year.

W. TAYLOR MARSHALL, Editor

Volume 9 June-July, 1955 No. 6

Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society

Chairman of Board

EXECUTIVE BOARD

John H. Eversole Treasurer - .

_ Tom Goodnight

President _

W. Taylor Marshall Secretary _

_ Angela Bool

Vipp Prpsidpnt

TiOi] Ella Archer Chief Counsel

_ William Elliott

BOARD MEMBERS

Edward L. Burrall

Leslie J. Mahoney

Mel Hinman

Reg Manning John H. Rhuart

Table of Contents

Editorial - - - - 63

Accessions . . . . . . . . . . 63

Opuntia undulata Griffiths?-— . - - - - - 64

Arizona Rainbow Cactus . . — - - - - 66

A Gall Midge infesting Opuntia phaeacantha _ 69

Opunti gosseliniana var. santa-rita, a crested flower _ 72

Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona

STAFF

Director . W. Taylor Marshall

Senior Botanist . James A. McCleary, Ph.D

Superintendent . W. Hubert Earle

Curator of Herbarium . E. R. (Jim) Blakley

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

EDITORIAL

Summer is with us again and again
the Garden is closed to the general pub¬
lic so that we can complete our building
program for the summer without inter¬
ference.

While the general public is not wel¬
comed during this period, we do wel¬
come our members at any time, day or
evening, to see the flowering plants.
This privilege is another good reason
why you should have memberships.

If you wish to come out in the even¬
ing to see the night flowering plants,
it might be a good idea to check by
phone in the afternoon to make sure
that there will be flowers open that
night.

The following letter which had a
$10.00 check enclosed is another ex¬
ample of reasons why we should have
many more members of the Garden:

May 3, 1955

Mr. W. Taylor Marshall, Director,

The Desert Botanical Garden of

Arizona
P. O. Box 547
Tempe, Arizona
Dear Mr. Marshall,

While in Phoenix this winter, my
wife and I had the pleasure of visiting
your Garden several times, and we were
greatly impressed. It is maintained in
excellent condition and is a credit to
the State of Arizona. I inquired as to
how it is financed and as a result de¬
cided to add my bit.

It should be supported by a large
membership.

We have taken a number of color
snaps all around Arizona — and par¬

ticularly in your place — and I have
not found a spot that so typically rep¬
resents that wonderful country.

I shall be glad to renew this mem¬
bership annually if you will remind me.

Sincerely, signed

Additional memberships are needed to
cover the ever mounting costs of car¬
ing for a constantly increasing attend¬
ance which reached about 150,000 per¬
sons for the 1954-55 season just ended.
Chamber of Commerce please note.

Work on improvements is already un¬
der way and we have replaced the worn,
narrow steps which were the main ap¬
proach to Webster Auditorium. The old
steps, like the terrace, were of flag¬
stone and over the years had become
chipped on the edges forming a haz¬
ard to our visitors. The new steps are
three feet wider, are of concrete with
sanded surface and have three hand
rails to aid our more infirm visitors to
ascend them.

We have also relaid the flagstones
of the upper terrace to eliminate in¬
equalities.

We plan to increase the size of our
aluminum lath house from 4800 square
feet to 6000 square feet which will mean
that we can double the space devoted to
display beds.

We also plan on a new, all aluminum
frame, glass house for raising seedlings
and a new glass room for frost tender
Euphorbias.

We lack the money for some of this
work but hope to be able to raise the
$1,000.00 additional funds from some
of our good friends.

ACCESSIONS

Mr. John H. Eversole has presented
the Garden with a Rolleicord camera
equipped with portrait lenses which will
enable us to get good clear plant and
flower pictures for the Bulletin. He al¬
so sent us equipment to process our own
film.

Mr. Herman Schroeder of Avalon,

California has sent us six large “Gold¬
en Barrel” seedlings, another “Old Man
of Mexico” and a large “Old Man of the
Andes,” Echinocactus grusonii, Cephal-
ocereus senilis and Espostoa lanata to
you Cactomaniacs.

Paul Hutchison of the University of
California Botanical Garden has senl

JUNE-JULY, 1955

US a large number of his seedlings from
his own Chilian collecting trip and from
the seeds sent by Dr. Cardenas of his
new species from Bolivia, All of these
will be grown to rnaturilv, as many as
100 of some species, so that observations
can be made on spine variations and
flower color differences within a spe¬
cies.

Three expeditions from the Garden
are now making collections for us of
cactus, Agaves and seeds of other desert
plants. Heading them are Ken Fisher,
a member from Mesa, Charlie Mieg,
who will be gone two months, and Gus
and Sylvia Herman and Gus Jr. who
have gone to semi-tropical areas to col¬
lect.

The results of their expeditions will
be on display when the Garden reopens
next fall.

Mr. Earle and the writer will at¬
tend the Convention of the Cactus and
Succulent Society of America at El

Paso July 8th to 11th and Dr. McCleary
and the writer plan a trip to Utah, Col¬
orado and New Mexico to investigate
species of Agaves in August.

Our three expeditions will also col¬
lect the Agaves of the districts they will
visit so we hope to make considerable
progress in assembling the material
needed for our Agave investigation this
year.

The new herbarium case presented
by Charlie Mieg has just arrived and
will be used for the preservation of
herbarium sheets on Agaves.

We have much to be thankful for as
you see and we are deeply grateful to
the above outstanding contributors and
to all our members.

We sincerely hope to be successful in
our efforts to secure the additional
$1,000.00 we need if the improvements
outlined are to be completed this sum¬
mer.

OPUNTIA UNDULATA GRIFFITHS?

In August of 1947 R. C. and Claire
Meyer Proctor brought a pad of an un¬
known Opuntia to the Desert Botanical
Garden. Not only was its name not
known but its place of origin was also
a mystery. Because of the tremendous
size of the pads, it has been tentative¬
ly identified up until the present time
by Mr. W. Taylor Marshall as Opuntia
undulata Griffiths. Of course, other
vegetative characteristics are also in
general agreement. The pad took root,
grew rapidly, and cuttings were taken
from it to start several other plantings.

This year for the first time, two of the
four plants produced flowers and fruits.
In order to establish a definite identifi¬
cation, the literature was searched to
see if these structures agreed with the
records. Originally, the species was de¬
scribed by Dr. David Griffiths in Vol.
22 of the Missouri Botanical Garden
Reports in an article entitled Illustrated
Studies in the Genus Opuntia IV, pp.
32-33. Of the flower, Griffiths has noth¬
ing to say having collected the plant too

Bisected flower
showing style.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Is it

Opuntia

undulata

Griffiths?

late in the season. The fruit he de¬
scribes as “fruit large, 4-5x9-10 cm.,
dull red to slightly tinged with orange
and pulp streaked with red and orange
when rind is removed.” This plant was
obtained at Aguas Calientes, Mexico in
1905 and, although grown by Dr. Grif¬
fiths until 1910, never flowered. Pho¬

tos of the original plant show that it
was grown under irrigation for com¬
mercial purposes.

A check of Britton and Rose, The
Cactaceae, reveals nothing additional as
their description was copied from Grif¬
fiths. Neither Isaac Ochoterena in Las
Cactaceas de Mexico (1922) nor Helia

Flower
of the
above
plant.

JUNE-JULY, 1955

Bravo in Las Cactaceas de Mexico
(1937) describes the flower and fruit.

In an attempt to ascertain if any of
our readers recognize or have informa¬
tion concerning specimens similar to
the one in our garden, we shall describe
the flower and immature fruit. The
flowers are golden-yellow, rotate-cam-
panulate, around 12 cm. in diameter.
An outstanding feature which has not
been observed in any other Opuntia is
the tremendous size of the style which
is from 1 to 1.5 cm. broad and about
2 to 2.5 cm. in length and urn-shaped
in outline.

The immature fruit, which in June
is approximately 5x9 cm., is bluish-
green with long tubercles tipped with
areoles bearing yellowish-brown glo-
chids. Because of the length of the tu¬
bercles, the areoles are mainly pro¬
duced on the upper half of the fruit. A

deep cup-like depression on the end
marks where the perianth was attached.

As indicated above, there is almost
complete agreement between this plant
and the published description of Opun¬
tia undulata Griffiths. One exception
must be noted, however, and that is in
the color of the young growth. Griffiths
notes that new growth is a glossy light-
yellowish green, while the color of the
young growth of our specimen is ma¬
roon similar to that of Opuntia gossel-
iana var. santa rita. What the effects
of continued irrigation upon the color
of the young growth of Opuntia is not
known. Since our plants receive a more
or less normal supply of water, this may
account for the difference.

James A. McCleary,

Senior Botanist and Assoc.

Prof, of Botany at A.S.C at Tempe

ECHINOCEREUS PECTINATUS (SCHEIDWEILER) ENGELMANN

VARIETY RIGIDISSIMUS ENGELMANN
ARIZONA RAINBOW CACTUS

The Arizona rainbow cactus acquired
its common name because of the varia¬
tion in spine color from year to year,
some years red, others straw colored
or white but leaving bands of varying
colors around the mature plant.

It is notable also for the size and
brilliance of its magenta flowers which
are to be seen on the plants in April
and May.

It is a variety of a species, Echino-
cereus peclinatus, which is widespread
from northeastern Mexico to Sonora and
the islands in the Gulf of California and
some of the variations can be found in
Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Ari¬
zona in the United States.

Any species of plants occupying such
a wide range of climates and altitudes
would, of necessity, have many forms
and our species is no exception. The
variations consist of varying sizes from
the relatively small E. pectinatus reich-
enbachii of the northern range to the

SAGUAROLAND BUI-LETIN

Echinocereus pectinatus rigidissi-
mus — Arizona Rainbow Cactus

(Above and on page 66)

Echinocereus pectinatus pectinatus
A plant of the true species collected
in Cochise Countv, Arizona

< <m

tall growing, up to 12 inches, E. pectin¬
atus rigidissimus which is almost al-
v/ays simple, that is, consisting of one
branch only while E. pectinatus neo-
mexicanus and E. pectinatus reichen-
bachii both form clumps of stems.

The flower color range within the
species is even more remarkable. Our
rainbow cactus, the cob cactus or lace
cactus, E. pectinatus reichenbachii, and
other variations have flowers ranging
from magenta to rose color. E. pectina¬
tus neo-mexicanus (synonym Echino¬
cereus dasyacanthus, has a yellow or
yellowish flower while E. pectinatus
grandis has a small flower of a dirty-

JUNE-JULY, 1955

Echinocereus pectinatus grandis

white color.

The fruits of all the variations are
similar. The fruit is, at first, very
spiny but the spines tend to fall off as
the fruit ripens into a globose, red ber¬
ry of excellent flavor.

All most all of the variations present
difficulties for growers outside the des¬
ert areas and it is true that only young
plants are capable of meeting new con¬
ditions of humidity and temperature.

Nursery grown seedlings are best and
the growth rate of such seedlings is
very satisfactory.

Echinocereus pectinatus rigidissimus,
E. pectinatus neo-mexicanus and E. pec¬
tinatus pectinatus are especially difficult
in cultivation and only very young
plants can be successfully reestablished
even in the desert areas of Arizona.

Echinocereus pectinatus neo-
mexicanus

Texas Rainbow. Flowers yellow

Echinocereus pectinatus grandis
White Flowered Rainbow

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

A GALL MIDGE INFESTING OPUNTIA PHAEACANTHA

Over the weekend of May 1, 1955,
the author, accompanied by Dr. Walter
Tulecke of the Arizona State College
at Tempe botany staff, two students,
Murray Walker and Roy Johnson, un¬
dertook a botanical collecting trip along
a portion of Clear Creek in the Grand
Canyon of Arizona in conjunction with
the National Park Service and the
Grand Canyon Natural History Associa¬
tion.

One of the interesting collections
made was that of several insect infested
ovaries of Opuntia phaeacantha. At first,
the swollen fruit was thought to be a
gall because of the new pads growing
from the apical end of the structure,
but dissection soon showed the pres¬
ence of numerous undeveloped seeds.

The fruits were brought back to the
college and placed in an insect cage
to await their emergence. Before cag¬
ing, the fruit was kept for several days
in the writers office. While sitting at
his desk one afternoon, he looked down
and saw an enormous “mosquito” on
his ankle. The insect was promptly dis¬
patched. Closer observation showed
that this “mosquito” was actually one
of the seed or gall midges. This midge
has been tentatively identified by Dr.
Gordon Bender, entomologist at Ari¬
zona State College, as a species of the
genus Miastor.

Many insects which attack and de¬
stroy the cactus are known. G. A. Frick,
in the February 1953 issue of the Cac¬
tus and Succulent Journal states that
there are 250 destructive insect species
known to Texas entomologists which
destroy cacti in that state. However, to
the best of our knowledge, none of the
Miastor species have been reported on
cactus.

In 1920, the Commonwealth Prickly
Pear Board of Australia was organized
to survey means of putting to use or
eradicating the several prickly pears
which had affected more than 60,000,000
acres of land in Queensland and New

Proliferating fruit on plant
attacked by gall midge.

South Wales. The use of chemicals, fun¬
gi, and insects were studied by author¬
ity of this board with the insect being
soon considered as the only feasible pos¬
sibility. Entomologists were sent to var¬
ious countries and at least twelve cen¬
ters were established in the United
States where life histories and feeding
habits were studied and at length at
least 50 different species of insects
were sent to Australia and in all, 12

JUNE-JULY, 1955

Gall midge of the genus Miastor.

Fruit bisected to show infestation by gall midge.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Front view of gall midge.

species became established.

During the course of the above inves¬
tigations, the cecidomyid midge or As-
phondylia opuntiae was tested and found
to be able to cause destruction of the
prickly pear but failed to pass the so-
called starvation test in so far as if it
was deprived of the prickly pear, it
would deposit eggs in and thus destroy
the young fruit of fig, peach and apple.
Although we know little or nothing con¬
cerning the feeding habits of the Mi-
astor, since its life history appears sim¬
ilar to that of Asphondylia, the life his¬
tory of the latter will be given in order
to show the destructive possibilities
which may occur.

Asphondylia opuntiae has a wide dis¬
tribution throughout the southwest,

sometimes being very plentiful in local
areas with resulting destruction of as
high as 80% of the fruits and seeds. E.
P. Felt, in a Key to Gall Midges (Bulle¬
tin No. 257, New York State Museum,
1925) reports A. opuntiae as so abund¬
ant as to ruin practically every cactus
fruit in large sections of California. Eggs
are deposited in young buds in early
spring. The flower develops as usual,
pollination and fertilization occur and
the fruit grows normally for a time but
soon becomes swollen or attenuated. The
seeds remain soft and never mature.
Fruits do not absciss but remain on the
plant during the summer and winter
during which time the larvae slowly
develop until pupation occurs in Feb¬
ruary and March. The adults leave the

JUNE-JULY, 1955

fruit in March and April after which
the fruit withers and drops. A few spe¬
cies of Opuntia are known to prolif¬
erate and produce new pads or flowers.

Since no recent reports of these in¬
festations have been publicized, it is
not known to what extent these pests
may be spread. Careful observations
should be made so that control mea¬

sures can be applied if necessary.

Specimens of this insect will be re¬
tained at the Desert Botanical Garden,
Arizona State College at Tempe and at
the Grand Canyon National Park.

James A. McCleary,

Senior Botanist and Assoc.

Prof, of Botany, A.S.C at Tempe

OPUNTIA GOSSELINIANA VAR. SANTA-RITA

A CRESTED FLOWER

One of the showiest of our plants is
a crested form of Opuntia gosseliniana
variety santa-rita, the purple prickly
pear.

In cold or dry weather this species
takes on a purple coloration that is
greatly admired, even in the plants
which are not crested.

When, in addition to the coloration,
we have a crested plant with each plate
shaped pad fanned out and ruffled on
top, it becomes even more noticable.

Not satisfied with these attractions
this one particular plant produced a
number of crested flowers for us in
May, one of which we illustrate.

Most growers are under the impres¬
sion that flowering is a most unusual
occurance in crested plants but we
have found that in a favorable climate

and with satisfactory growing condi¬
tions crested plants flower as freely as
non-crested ones.

This is indeed fortunate as the identi¬
fication of crests without flowers is very
difficult because the crested growth dif ¬
fers widely, in most instances, not only
in shape but even in spination.

For example, we had a beautiful crest
supposed to be Machaerocereus gum-
mosus presented to us as a grafted plant
by Frank Mark. We do not care for
grafted plants for display in our garden
so we took the crest off the stock and
established it on its own roots. When it
flowered we were able to identify it as
Notocactus mamullosus from its flow¬
ers although the spination more closely
resembled Machaerocereus.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN o/ARIZONA^^^^

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Published and owned by the Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Societ j , sponsors
of the Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona, P. O. Box 547, Tempe. Saguaroland
Bulletin attempts to promote the Garden and to provide information on the desert
plants and their culture. Subscription $3.00 per year, the subscription including
active membership in the Society and the Desert Botanical Garden. Issued 10 times
a year.

W. TAYLOR MARSHALL, Editor

_ _1

Volume 9 August-September, 1955 No. ^

Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society

EXECUTIVE BOARD

Chairman of Board _ John H. Eversole Treasurer _ Tom Goodnight

President _ W. Taylor Marshall Secretary _ Angela Bool

Vice President _ Lou Ella Archer Chief Counsel _ William Elliott

BOARD MEMBERS

Edward L. Burrall Leslie J. Mahoney Mel Hinman

Reg Manning John H. Rhuart

Table of Contents

Editorial _ 63

Editorial . 75

Melocactus in Mexico . 76

Wislizenius Barrel Cactus . 79

Lechuguilla or Lecheguilla . 80

Book Reviews . 83

Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona

STAFF

Director . W. Taylor Marshall

Senior Botanist . James A. McCleary, Ph.D

Superintendent . W. Hubert Earle

Curator of Herbarium . E. R. (Jim) Blakley

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

EDITORIAL

The months of June and July have
been ones of exceptional activity by the
staff of the Desert Botanical Garden.
Physical changes have been made, col¬
lecting trips taken, new plants added to
our collection and plans for the coming
year have been discussed over and over
again. Just as last year, the Garden will
open to visitors on Saturdays and Sun¬
days during September and remain open
everyday except Mondays thereafter.

Your director and Mr. Hubert Earle,
along with Paul Hutchison of the Uni¬
versity of California at Berkeley, at¬
tended the joint meeting of the Cactus
and Succulent Society and the I. O. S.
at El Paso in July. The convention was
well and enthusiastically attended.
Among the highlights of the convention
were the excellent scientific talks given
by Dr. Castetter of the University of
New Mexico on the cacti of that state.
Dr. Lyman Benson on the geography of
the cactus and by Dr. Margery Anthony
on the ecology of the Big Bend cacti;

the meeting of the I. O. S. and last, but
not least, the renewal of friendships
with many cactus lovers from all over
the country.

Visitors to the Garden during this
time have been numerous. Before the
El Paso meetings saw Dr. Monte Cazier,
director of the new biological station in
the Chiricahua Mts., Mrs. Josephine
Miller, secretary to Floyd Merrill of the
Greeley Daily Tribune, Dr. Burkholder,
Professor of Botany at the University
of Georgia, Dr. Martha J. Spence, a
member of the Sarasota Succulent So¬
ciety, Sarasota, Florida, and Robert
Leigh, a professional photographer from
California stopped for visits. Mr. Mar-
chanton from Vancouver, British Col¬
umbia dropped by on his way to El
Paso as did Mrs. Helen M. Phillips who
brought a number of books as a gift
to the Garden. After the El Paso con¬
vention, Howard Gates, Mert and Mort
Spielman, Dr. and Mrs. Blue, Mr. and
Mrs. Homer Rush, the Don Skinners

The new steps and hand-rails at the entrance to the

administration building.

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1955

and the Harry Johnsons stopped at the
Garden for lengths of time varying from
several hours to several days. We en¬
joyed their visits and were happy to
see each of them.

Jack Schreuder, a member of long
standing, and a man who has contribut¬
ed hundreds of rare plants to the Gar¬
den will spend a few days with us in
August.

Our library has been increased by a
gift from Mrs. Helen M. Phillips who
brought numerous back volumes of
Desert Plant Life and the Cactus and
Succulent Journal as well as Van Lar-
en’s Succulents, Van Laren’s Cacti and
Thornber and Honker’s The Fantastic
Clan. Paul Hutchison generously had
volumes 14 to 24 of the Desert Plant
Life bound as a gift to us.

Accessions

A large number of plants have swell¬
ed our collections. Paul Hutchison add¬
ed 120 records to our accessions book,
many of which had from one plant to
an entire flat of seedlings. Charlie
Mieg and Gus Hermann took their fam¬
ilies on collecting trips to Mexico. The
Hermanns brought back approximately
75 species for us and the Miegs brought
105. Some of Mr. Miegs habitat pic¬
tures from the trip are in this issue
and the complete story will be in the
October number.

The Aluminex Corporation of Cali¬
fornia, from whom we purchased our
lath house, sent us 30 laths free in order

to replace some of the ones damaged
by a wind storm.

John Hales, one of our local mem¬
bers, presented us with 2 exhibits show¬
ing a number each of Coloradoa mesae-
verde and Utahia sileri in large display
boxes in a replica of their habitats and
in their own native soil.

Work Progress

Construction work has been progress¬
ing at a fairly rapid pace despite the
break in of vacation periods for the
staff. The front patio of the admini¬
stration building has been relaid and
new cement steps and guide rails placed
at the north entrance (see illustration).
At this time, one 20 by 20 extension to
the lath house has been completed and
another section 20 by 40 will soon be
done. When finished this will add
1200 sq. feet of floor space for display
and plant propagation purposes. The
purchasing of a glass house, originally
scheduled for this summer, is still being
withheld pending further developments.

As our Garden grows in size and
number of plantings our costs go up,
much faster than our income. We took
a chance that some friend or friends of
the Garden would assist us with the
paying for the lath and glass houses.
So far, the money has not been forth¬
coming. If it does not come in, we
will not be able to buy the glass house
and payment for the lath house will
seriously cut into our reserves and
hamper our plans for the future.

THE GENUS MELOCACTUS IN MEXICO
W. Taylor Marshall

Four species of Melocacti have been
described from Mexico since 1837 but
very little was known about the actual
plants until very recent years.

The first description was by Pfeiffer
in Enum. Cact. 46, 1837 of Melocactus
curvispinus which was said to come
from Mexico without precise locality.
It is described as globose, 10 cm. high,
7.5 cm. in diameter, depressed; ribs 10
to 12; areoles large, round, white-vel¬

vety; radial spines 7, curved, brownish or
white, 12 to 16 mm. long; central spines
2, erect, 2.5 cm. long, blackish.

A repetition of this description was
given on page 135 of Monographia Gen¬
eris Melocacti, 1838, F. A. Guil. Miquel.

Melocactus delessertianus Lemaire,
Hort. Univ. 1:125, 1839 is described as
slightly depressed, about 10 cm. high;
ribs 12 to 15; radial spines 8 or 9; cen¬
tral spines 2; flowers and fruit unknown.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Melocactus curvispinus Pfeiffer, a plant collected at Salina Cruz, Oaxaca.

This plant was also listed as from Mex¬
ico but without specific location.

The third description of a Melocactus
from Mexico was in a circular issued
by Professor Murillo of Jalapa, Vera
Cruz, Mexico about 1897. Murillo of¬
fered plants for sale and stated “This
Melocactus is found in the fissures of
lofty, perpendicular mountain passes,

but in very limited numbers, and in a
region not exceeding a square mile in
extent.”

Britton and Rose, Cactaceae 111: 228,

1922 list Murillo’s plant under the

genus Cactus as Cactus Salvador (Mu¬
rillo), with the following description:
Simple, globose, 30 to 40 cm. in diame¬
ter; ribs 13; radial spines 8, somewhat
recurved, central spines 1 to 3, longer
and stouter than the radials, those near
the center of the plant nearly erect,
those on the side somewhat curved

downward; cephalium 8 cm. in diameter,
flowers rose-pink, seeds black.

As the type location they state that
none was cited and they give the dis¬
tribution as “High mountains above

Jalapa, Vera Cruz,” although I cannot
find that Murillo divulged the location
of his mountain pass.

The April, 1898 number of the Cac¬
tus Journal, London, carried a half page
advertisement by Murillo offering or¬
chids and five species of cacti, includ¬
ing Melocactus Salvador and this ad¬
vertisement was repeated in the May,
June and July issues. In the August,
1899 issue the editor reported the flow¬
ering of several of his plants of M.
Salvador.

The original circular of Murillo was
accompanied by an illustration of four
potted plants and this we have not
seen but Britton and Rose, Cactaceae
111:229 have reproduced a photograph
of five plants, two with cephalia, which
they obtained from the library of Kew
Garden who received it from Murillo.
This picture shows plants which are
identical with plants collected in the
state of Oaxaca in Mexico.

Dr. Isaac Ochoterena in Las Cactaceas
de Mexico, 1922 makes no mention of
any species of Melocactus in Mexico yet

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1955

he was a colleague of Prof. Luis Murillo
and credits him with assistance in the
preparation of the book.

The description of the Mexican cacti
in “Trees and Shrubs of Mexico,” Paul
C. Standley 1924, part 4, was prepared
by Drs. Britton and Rose and listed only
Cactus Salvador as native to that coun¬
try.

Dr. Helia Bravo in Las Cactaceas de
Mexico, 1937, follows Britton and Rose
and recognizes only Cactus Salvador.
She did note also the publication of
Melocactus curvispinus by Pfeiffer and
also mentions that plants of the genus
had been received by Britton and Rose
from two locations in the state of
Oaxaca.

These plants were described as Cac¬
tus sp. by Britton and Rose, Cactaceae
111: 236-237, 1922 and illustrated by a
photograph of a juvenile plant as figure
249 on page 236. Their description was:
Plant small, globose, 10 cm. in diameter;
ribs 11 to 13, rounded, low; spines usu¬
ally 10 to 12, subulate, more or less
recurved; central spine 1 or sometimes
2; crown 10 to 12 cm. in diameter; flow¬

ers small; fruit small.

They comment: “A living plant was
sent to Dr. Rose by Professor C. Con-
zatti in October 1913 (no. 151a) from
Salina Cruz, Oaxaca and it has been
reported by Dr. C. A. Purpus from San
Geronimo.

They suggest also that M. curvispinus
Pfeiffer and M. delessertianus Lemaire
may apply to this species.

In Cactaceae IV: 289, appendix, Brit¬
ton and Rose formally describe the
plants under the name Cactus oaxa-
censis sp. nov. as follows: globular to
ovoid, 12 to 15 cm. thick, with a small,
low crown only 3 to 4 cm. broad; ribs
11 to 15, prominent, usually rounded;
radial spines 8 to 12, subulate, more or
less recurved, at first reddish-brown
but grayish in age, 2 cm. long or less;
central spines 1 or sometimes 2, erect
or porrect; flowers slender, about 2
cm. long, dark rose; filaments and style
light yellow; fruit thick-clavate, 2 to 4.5
cm. long, scarlet, shiny; seeds small,
black.

(Turn to page 80)

Melocactus curvispinus Pfeiffer. Three plants collected by Mieg on
the Tehuantipec-Oaxaca road. Note rib and radial spine variation.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Wislizenius barrel cactus.

WISLIZENIUS BARREL CACTUS

Wislizenius’ barrel is named for one
of the early botanists who explored
areas of northern Mexico and made
plant collections . . . Found only in
the areas of Arizona to Texas, usually
below 4000 ft. altitude, it is the largest
barrel of Arizona sometimes reaching
8 feet in heighth with one report of
11 feet and up to 24 inches in diameter.
The flowers of this barrel are extremely
variable, appearing in late July, August
or September and being from red to
yellow in color. In common with other
barrels, this one has fruits bearing nak¬
ed scales.

Because many specimens of Wisli¬
zenius’ barrel slant in a southwesterly
direction, it is sometimes called the
“Compass Cactus.” However, this is

not a dependable characteristic and in¬
dividual plants in a group may lean in
various directions.

The areoles contain about 4 central
spines, one of which is strongly hooked.
The radial spines are threadlike, white
and arranged in a pectinate manner.

Like other species of barrels, Wisli¬
zenius’ barrel is sometimes used to make
“cactus candy.” In line with our ideas
on conservation, we would like to urge
all our readers not to purchase any
confection made from the body of the
plant as certain of the barrels are being
entirely wiped out in some localities.
Instead, buy candy made from the fruits
of any of the various cactus plants. This
does no harm to the plant and saves it
for future generations to enjoy.

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1955

They report that it has been found
by C. R. Orcutt at Salina Cruz and that
Dr. B. P. Reko had sent them photo¬
graphs (one of which they reproduce as
fig. 262) and flowers obtained by him
in 1923, while Dr. J. A. Purpus recol¬
lected it in 1923 (type) and has sent
living plants.

In the past four years we have had
ample opportunity to study the Melo-
cactus from Mexico including collections
by the Moortens of Palm Springs, Calif.,
the collections of Howard Gates and
Gil Tegelburg from near San Geronimo,
a plant from the Botanical Garden of
the University of California collected
at Salina Cruz and three plants, as il¬
lustrated, collected by Charles Mieg on
the Tehuantepec-Oaxaca road.

All of these collections were from the
state of Oaxaca but Dr. E. Yale Daw¬
son in Allen Hancock Foundation Pub¬
lications, Occasional Papers No. 1, page
22, 1948 in addition to collections of
Cactus oaxacensis Britton and Rose at
Salina Cruz (D 3031) notes: “A more
extensive distribution is indicated,
however, by the authors observations

of plants probably of this species, grow¬
ing in similar situations on steep gran¬
ite hills overlooking the sea at Barra
de Navidad, Jalisco.”

A description made from the just
mentioned plants would read thusly:
Plants globose to sub-cylindrical; ribs
10, 11, 12, and 13; radial spines 7, 8,
and 9 with the majority being 8; cen¬
tral spines 1 to 3, usually 2, erect at
the apex of young plants, porrect and
somewhat curved on the sides of the
plants, mahogany red to black at first,
weathering to a uniform grayish; cepha-
lia low, about 15 cm. in diameter; flow¬
ers light fuschia; fruits 5 cm. or more in
length, clavate, scarlet.

From the description just given it
can be noted that M. curvispinus, M.
delessertianus and M. Salvador will all
fit into the same category.

Our conclusion is that there is
only one species of Melocactus to be
found in Mexico. We propose the use
of the first validly published name,
Melocactus curvispinus Pfeiffer to cover
that species with the relegation of the
other names to synonomy.

LECHUGUILLA or LECHEGUILLA - A NOMENCLATURAL

PROBLEM

In 1859, J. Torrey, writing a descrip¬
tion of the plants collected by mem¬
bers of the United States and Mexican
Boundary Survey party, described a
species of Agave to which he gave the
specific epithet of “lecheguilla.” In a
discussion of the species, he states that
the common name for the plant is
“lechuguilla.”

Since that time, many prominent bot¬
anists dealing with the species have evi¬
dently been at a loss as to the correct
spelling to use. Mulford, in her A Study
of the Agaves of the United States,
published in 1896, uses the “lechuguilla”
version stating that “by error, the spe¬
cific name was originally printed ‘Lech¬
eguilla’.” In 1915, Berger in Die Agaven
and Wooten and Standley in Flora of
Mexico followed Mulford in her spell¬

ing. However, by 1920, Standley had
changed his opinion for in The Trees
and Shrubs of Mexico he reverts to
“lecheguilla.” L. H. Bailey used “leche¬
guilla” in the Cyclopedia of Horticul¬
ture published in 1943 and Benson and
Darrow in the 1944 and 1954 printings
of The Trees and Shrubs of the South¬
western Deserts retained the original
spelling with the notation, “the specific
name is taken with slight modification
from lechuguilla, the Mexican com¬
mon name which is the diminuitive of
lechuga, lettuce.”

That lechuguilla is the diminuitive of
lechuga or lettuce is a fact that is borne
out by the Diccionario Ingles y Espanol,
Holt 1953, page 353. The relationship be¬
tween the “leche” and the “lechu” is
obvious. Wild lettuce, a member of the

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Agave

lechuguilla Torrey, a group of plants in the Desert Botanical

Garden.

composite or sunflower family, con¬
tains a milky juice in its structures. The
Spanish word for milk is “leche”.
However, there is no Spanish word
“lecheguilla”. It will probably never
be clear as to Torrey’s intent, whether
the use of the letter “e” was a deliber¬
ate spelling as suggested by Benson and
Darrow or whether, according to Mul-
ford, a typographical error.

Until recently, the International Rules
of Botanical Nomenclature did not allow
a change in spelling in a circumstance
of this nature. However, the latest edi¬
tion of the rules, published after the
1950 meetings at Stockholm now allows
a change to be made if the spelling is
a result of a typographic or ortho¬
graphic error (see section 14, article 82,
Orthography of names and epithets).
Obviously the use of the “e” rather
than the “u” was a typographical error
or if it were not, the changing of lech-
uga to the diminuitive form with the
spelling of “lecheguilla” was an ortho¬
graphic mistake and should be treated
as such.

Thus the use of the specific epithet
“lechuguilla” seems to be the correct
spelling and the plant in question should
be cited as Agave lechuguilla Torrey.
James A. McCleary,

Senior Botanist and Assoc.

Prof, of Botany A.S.C at Tempe

Flowering of Agave americana

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1955

Mammillaria guerreronis in its natural setting. Mieg photo.

A tree like Agave or century plant in flower in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Mieg photo.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Mieg photo.

Cereus tetetzo Weber (Neobuxbaumia tetetzo Backeberg) in Oaxaca.

BOOK REVIEWS

Two publications of interest to those
who like to travel in the southwest or
collect cactus.

The American Southwest, A Golden
Regional Guide, written by Natt N.
Dodge, Regional Naturalist, National
Park Service, and Herbert S. Zim, Prof,
of Education, University of Illinois,
with illustrations by Arch and Miriam
Hurford. This small booklet, publish¬
ed by Simon and Schuster is a first
in a series of guides to the regions of
the United States. It gives information
concerning climate, major attractions,
places to see and things to do, mammals,
plants, insects, the ancient and modern
Indians and other things too numerous
to mention. The cost of this is only

$1.95 plus $.10 postage when ordered
from the Desert Botanical Garden.

Cactaceae y Suculentas Mexicanas is
a new journal just started by the Mexi¬
can Cactus Society. Although a foreign
language journal it brings first hand
information concerning Mexican cacti
and other succulents and their habitats.
A $2.00 membership brings a years sub¬
scription or four numbers. The first
number was worth the price of the
subscription in order to obtain two of
Dr. Helia Bravos works which were re¬
printed from another journal which is
difficult for most cactologists to obtain.
Write directly to the treasurer, Dudley
B. Gold, Aniceto Ortega No. 1055, Mex¬
ico 12, D. F.

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1955

Flower stalk of Agave americana growing at the rate of 16 inches a day.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Published and owned by the Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society, sponsors
of the Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona, P. O. Box 547, Tempe. Saguaroland
Bulletin attempts to promote the Garden and to provide information on the desert
plants and their culture. Subscription $3.00 per year, the subscription including
active membership in the Society and the Desert Botanical Garden. Issued 10 times
a year.

W. TAYLOR MARSHALL, Editor

Volume 9 October, 1955 No. 8

Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society

EXECUTIVE BOARD

Chairman of Board _ John H. Eversole Treasurer - Tom Goodnight

President _ W. Taylor Marshall Secretary - Angela Bool

Vice President _ . Lou Ella Archer Chief Counsel - William Elliott

BOARD MEMBERS

Edward L. Burrall Leslie J. Mahoney Mel Hinman

Reg Manning John H. Rhuart

Table of Contents

Editorial . 87

Editorial from Phoenix Gazette . 88

Accessions . 88

Our Collectors Visit Mexico . 89

The Dwarf Prickly Pear . 91

Toumeya peeblesiana Rediscovered . 93

Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona

STAFF

Director . W. Taylor Marshall

Senior Botanist . James A. McCleary, Ph.D

Superintendent . W. Hubert Earle

Curator of Herbarium . E. R. (Jim) Blakley

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

EDITORIAL

Fall in the desert country is a truly
delightful season. The summer rains
and heat have produced a remarkable
growth on our desert plants and they
are all at their very best. Flowers are
frequently seen this fall due to our
greater summer rainfall and every¬
thing in the garden is lush and green.

Temperatures during October and
November are ideal for outdoor trips

hibits and facilities each year to ac¬
commodate the larger attendance.

All of this increases our cost of op¬
erations but, as we make no charge
for admissions, our income does not in¬
crease in proportion and we have found
it harder each year to meet the increased
costs. This summer we doubled the
planting area under lath and built a
new all-aluminum glass house for the

Inteiror of the enlarged lath-house

through the plantings and we anticipate
a greater number of visitors than in
previous years.

Commencing October 1st the garden
will be open daily from 10 A.M. to 5
P.M. except that on Mondays we re¬
main closed all day. The usual Wed¬
nesday and Thursday lectures will be
resumed late in October.

Each year we have had an increase
in the number of visitors to our garden,
last year about one hundred fifty thou¬
sand, and we have enlarged our area of
intensive cultivation, number of ex¬

propagation of new plants. To do this
we have had to draw heavily on funds
for the operation of the garden and un¬
less some gifts of money come in soon
we will have to cut down on our staff
or reduce salaries that are already
lower than in any similar work.

That our efforts are appreciated by
our visitors we know from their very
complimentary remarks to us but we
were vastly pleased by a gratuitous
compliment in the form of an editorial
in The Phoenix Gazette on September
9th from which we quote: —

OCTOBER, 1955

UNUSUAL ATTRACTION

Tne Desert Botanical Garden, one of
me Valley’s lavorite attractions for both
lesidents and visitors, opens for the sea¬
son tomorrow. More than 1,000 new
piants will be on display for the event.

A number of improvements have been
made during the summer at the inter¬
esting outdoor objective located in Pap-
ago Park east of Phoenix. About 1,200
square ieet of additional planting is pos¬
sible this year through enlargement of
the lath house, and facilities for grow¬
ing unique plants have been increased in
other areas of the grounds.

Those who would know the bizarre
desert plants at first hand could find
no more convenient method than that
offered by the unusual institution which
charges no admission. Many miles of
travel and more time than most of us
can spare would be required to view the
many species of cacti and other desert
growth displayed in the garden along
a pleasant nature walk requiring little
more than an hour to cover.

But very few people settle for an hour
at the garden. Its varied attractions, in¬
cluding many desert birds who favor its
inviting surroundings, are so absorbing
that many visitors return again and
again. Photographers find it made to
order for striking pictures.

The Valley is fortunate to have the
garden as a constant reminder of the
amazing and delightful things that grow
in our desert country.

ACCESSIONS

We have received 60 plants needed
for research from Mr. and Mrs. Gus
Hermann who made a special trip to
northern Arizona to collect them for us
at ther own expense.

Dr. James McCleary, while on vaca¬
tion with his family made extensive
collections of needed material from
Utah.

Mr. Harry Johnson donated a fine
collection of specimen plants from South
America which filled a large trailer.
Our Hubert Earle made a trip to Para¬
mount to get these plants which are

Our new glass-house before glass was installed

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

now in a new section of our lath house.

Included were large colonies of nearly
mature Huageocerei and Espostoas.

Mr. John Eversole presented us with
more supplementary lenses for the

Rolleicord Camera he had given us
earlier.

A welcome contribution to the lath
house fund was received from Hon.
Orme Lewis from Washington.

Enlarged lath-house from North
See glass-house to Right

OUR COLLECTORS VISIT MEXICO

Last month we promised to have the
story of the trip of the Miegs and the
Hermanns to Mexico in this issue. To
get a complete story each family was
asked to write an account of the trip.
Charlie Miegs’ story took 6000 words,
the Hermanns summary took 200. One
issue of our Bulletin consists of about
4000 words and the accompanying pic¬
tures, so it would take an issue and
half of the next to run the story as
written.

We have therefore condensed the epic
into this shorter story by considering
the most interesting incidents.

The party consisting of Charlie Mieg,
his wife Lillian and their two boys,
Gus and Sylvia Hermann and their son
left here early in the morning of June
4th and drove straight through to
Mazatlan, Sinaloa.

The rainy season had not commenced
and even here in the tropics all the
vegetation was dry and mostly leafless.

From Mazatlan the two cars attemp¬
ted a trip over a dirt road which cross¬
ed the mountain range to Durango but

after 30 miles of dusty travel over steep
and narrow roadway they returned to
Mazatlan. Then to San Bias and
Guadalajara, collecting en route.

In Guadalajara the party split up,
the ladies and the children remaining
in town for sightseeing while Charlie
and Gus attempted to reach Manzanillo
in Gus’ truck looking for the Melo-
cactus reported from there.

While on this trip the boys appar¬
ently lived on peanut butter, crackers
and black coffee and the local mosqui¬
toes lived on white meat provided by
our adventurers. ^

Finding the road practically impas¬
sable, they back tracked to Morelia
where the ladies and children rejoined
them and they all proceeded to Mexico
City.

From Mexico City the two men and
a guide took back roads to Puebla and
to Mount Orizaba which they climbed
to 9000 feet and camped out in what
they thought to be a straw pile but
which morning revealed as the clean¬
ings from a stable. On this three day

OCTOBER, 1955

trip the diet was exclusively peanut
butter, crackers and coffee because
they were just too lazy to heat up the
canned chicken a la king or any of the
American canned foods they had in
the car.

It was very cold at 9000 feet and that
night Charlie’s air mattress sprung a
tiny leak necessitating inflation about
each 15 minutes. This appeared much
more comical to Gus and the guide than
to Charlie.

Another night on this side trip the
camp was made after dark near several
ant hills whose local population found
in our adventurers a welcome change
from their accustomed diet, whatever
that was.

At Fortin de las Flores the men again
rejoined the women and children at
noon at Hotel Galindo where hot show¬
ers and a good meal put all things right
again.

The Hermanns now had used all of
the time available for this vacation and
planned to start back the next day.

The next morning Charlie and the

Hermanns went out 60 miles on the road
to Tehuacan where Charlie left them
to return to Fortin de las Flores and
the Hermanns continued a leisurely
trip home arriving three weeks after
leaving here with about 75 species of
Cactus for the garden.

The Miegs remained in Mexico for
five weeks longer and made many val¬
uable collections about which we will
write in the November Bulletin.

All of the party had dysentary at
some time during the trip and at Mora-
lia Charlie, in an attempt to relieve a
headache, took what he thought in the
dark to be Asperin tablets but which
were actually caustic soda and all the
rest of the night was spent giving him
emetics and antidotes for the poison.

Still later Charlie found that one of
the numerous mosquitos which had bit¬
ten him had given him malaria which
necessitated hospitalization and numer¬
ous shots of some new wonder drug
which was effective in curing it.

Continued in November

Lath-house from South

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

The dwarf prickly pear
Opuntia Compressa

THE DWARF PRICKLY PEAR

The dwarf prickly pear which is the
subject of our color plate this month has
several distinctions as it was the ear¬
liest known of the prickly pears and
was called by Linnaeus Cactus opuntia
in 1753.

It is not only the type of the genus
Opuntia but it has also the widest dis¬
tributions of all the prickly pears in¬
cluding the United States except a few
west coast states and Vermont and a
wide range across Canada and possibly
into northern Mexico.

It is to be expected that any plant
with such a wide range should assume
many geographical forms and this is
certainly true of our plant which has
been described under twenty or more
names as it was found in new locations

by various botanists.

Opuntia compressa (Salisbury) Mac-
bride is the scientific name and it may
be described as a low growing species
with seldom more than 3 joints height
but with a wide spread over the ground.
The individual joints are plate-shaped
from 2 to 41/2 inches in diameter and
during the spring and summer the joints
are erect, deep green, “so round, so firm,
so fully packed.”

As winter approaches the plant de¬
hydrates and the joints lay flat on the
ground resembling tired flapjacks left
from yesterday’s breakfast of an ama¬
teur camp cook.

This complete dry out and its flat¬
tened position on the ground enables
our plant to survive in very cold dis-

OCTOBER, 1955

tricts.

Both our color picture and the black
and white illustration represent variety
macrorrhiza which has large tuberous
roots and is usually found in the higher
grasslands and forests from 4500 to
6000 feet elevation.

Opuntia Compressa is represented in
the Desert Botanical Garden by collec¬

tions from New York State, New Jer¬
sey, South Carolina, Florida, Texas,
New Mexico, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan,
Arizona, Montana and several points in
Canada.

The flower on all varieties is large
and attractive in varying shades of
yellow.

Opuntia Compressa (Salis.) Macbr. Var. Macrorrhiza (Engel.) Benson
Photo by R. C. Proctor in Arizona’s Cactuses

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

TOUMEYA PEEBLESIANA (CROIZAT) MARSHALL

Navajoa peeblesiana Croizat

This illustration accompanied the first publication of the species
Reproduced thru courtesy of Cactus and Succulent Jounral

In the Cactus and Succulent Journal
XV:88, 1943, Leon Croizat published as
a new genus and species under the name
of Navajoa peeblesiana, a plant collect¬
ed some years before by a Mr. Whitta¬
ker of the Arizona Highway Depart¬
ment.

The plants collected by Mr. Whittaker
and associates, including our member
Monte Lebert, were found on some hills
north of the plant inspection station at
Holbrook, Ariz., and only two of them
survived the first year in captivity, and
these two only because they were graf¬
ted.

Croizat evidently published on the
basis of one of the grafted plants (See
illustration which accompanied the
description) as his description tallies
with that of a similar grafted plant in
our collection propagated from offsets
from one of the two original plants by

J. Whitman Evans of Phoenix. Croizat’s
description does not agree in several
important details with the collected
plants we now have.

Between the time of the first collec¬
tions by Whittaker and his associates
(about 1936) and its rediscovery by
Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Cowper of Belan,
New Mexico, numerous collectors and
botanists have endeavored to recollect
it but without success.

The Desert Botanical Gardens expe¬
ditions have spent a total of 21 man
days scouring the hills on which the
first plants were found but without
success. Now that we have the plants
the reason for our failure is self evi¬
dent as the plants are deeply seated in
the ground with only a flat surface
about the size of a nickel showing and
this surface is usually covered with
drift sand. We had been looking for a

OCTOBER, 1955

globose plant similar to the plant illus¬
trated by Croizat.

One plant was collected in 1949 by
Hester at a point north of Joseph City
and about 40 miles west of the type
location we are informed.

In the original publication by Croizat
the description of both the genus Nava-
joa and of the species N, Peelesiana
were in Latin but his notes in English
follow:

Seeing for the first time a live plant
of the Holbrook cactus, I immediately
thought of Toumeya, for the clyindric,
slender body with prominent podaria of
this plant is reminiscent, indeed, of the
lone species under that genus. The spin¬
es, too, are not incompatible in their
habit and nature with those of T. papy-
racantha. They are not as flexible as
in that species, but they are neither
pungent nor very hard. Usually four

of these spines, neatly arranged cross¬
wise, stand at the tip of every podar-
ium, this being quite ungrooved. Occa¬
sionally, a cluster of three to five small¬
er and somewhat irregular spines ap¬
pears behind the main rosette of four
spines. The pubescence is wooly and
rather abundant on the aerole at the
root of the spines. In the live plant in
my hand the pubescence of the spines,
which is said to cause the plant itself
to be reminiscent of a Typha spike in
bloom, is not in evidence. The spines
seem to consist of weak woody tissue,
arranged in longitudinal bands and
made of longitudinal cells of uniform
pale ochre color. It seems probable —
though the matter must be studied fur¬
ther — that the “hairs” on the spines are
result of the scaling off of the longitu¬
dinal cells in the outer layers of the
tissue of the spine, and that such “hairs”

A grafted plant of Toumeya peeblesiana in the collection of the
Garden and received from J. Whitman Evans

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

The eight plants collected for us by Mr. and Mrs. Denis Cowper
Toumeya peeblesiana (Croizat) Marshall

fail to appear when no scaling of the
spine takes place.

I have not seen flowers or fruits, but
a close-up that shows the details of the
flower and the descriptions indicate that
it does not possess the barely scaly
manifest hypanthium of Toumeya. I
regret that I cannot see more of the
hypanthium from the material at hand,
but should my plant ever flower I will
contribute additional notes on this very
important character. In the light of the
material and data now available it does
not prove possible to treat this plant
otherwise than as a monotypic genus
like Toumeya and Utahia, with the as¬
surance at least that the entity now be¬
ing published as a genus will not be
lost, if even reduced of rank, in a fur¬
ther progress of our studies.

As the description reveals, this is a
small plant, barely 3 cm. tall, as seen.
The podaria (nipples) are prominent.

spreading to erect, about 3mm. long.
The flowers are 16-17 mm. long, with
outer lobes pale brown, inner ones lined
in center by a pinkish stripe. The affin¬
ities of this monotype are definitely to¬
ward Toumeya, with which further
comparisons will have to be made as
soon as live material is available for a
full discussion of the characters of the
flower and fruit.

In “Cactus,” Paris, France 1:4:5, 1946,
Revision de la Systematique et Quelques
Nouvelles Combinaisons Dans le Famille
des Cactacees — W. Taylor Marshall —
I proposed amendments to the genus
Toumeya Britton and Rose so that
Navajoa could be included in that ge¬
nus. An English translation of this ar¬
ticle appeared in Cactus and Succulent
Journal XIX:5:76, May 1947.

A description made from eight plants
sent to us by Denis Cowper follows:

Primary root napiform, secondary

OCTOBER, 1955

roots somewhat thickened; plant body
globose to cylindrical, 3-4 c.m. long,
2.5-3 c.m. in diameter, 4/5 or more of
the body underground, only the flat¬
tened top with erect tubercles at the
level of the soil or slightly above the
soil when turgid, usually covered with
drift soil; tubercles glaucous-green, at
first globose, obtuse, 4 m.m. high, later
flattened laterally; areoles on apex of
tubercles, small, circular and without
content other than spines; spines all
radial, 3 to 5 mostly 4 to an areole, sub¬
ulate or sometimes flattened, the lower

3 about 3 m.m. long, sharply bent
downward and appressed against the
tubercle, the upper one 5 to 14 m.m.
long, ascending and connivent over the
top of the plant, all spines horn colored
at first, later grayish, in youth coated
with velvet, the texture soft and flexi¬
ble, not pungent, the spines persistent
on old tubercles even when below the
surface of the ground but on old tuber¬
cles not velvety but then appearing an¬
nulate and woody.

Flowers known only from the pho¬
tographs quoted by Croizat.

An account of the rediscovery of Toumeya peeblesiana by Denis Cowper was
received too late for this issue but because it is most interesting it will be in
the November issue.

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

•I t

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Published and owned the Arizona Cactus and Native Floia Society, sponsors
of the Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona, P. O. Box 547, Tempe. Saguaroland
Bulletin attempts to promote the Garden and to provide information on the desert
plants and their culture. Subscription $3.00 per year, the subscription including
active membership in the Society and the Desert Botanical Garden. Issued 10 times
a year.

W. TAYLOR MARSHALL, Editor

Volume 9 November, 1955 No. 9

Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society

EXECUTIVE BOARD

Chairman of Board John H. Eversole Treasurer _ Tom Goodnight

President _ W. Taylor Marshall Secretary _ Angela Bool

Vice President _ Lou Ella Archer Chief Counsel _ William Elliott

BOARD MEMBERS

Edward L. Burrall Leslie J. Mahoney Mel Hinman

Reg Manning John H. Rhuart

Table of Contents

Editorial _ 99

Our Collectors Visit Mexico — Part 2 . _ . .. _ _ 99

Easter Lily Cactus _ _ _ _ . „ _ 103

Rediscovery of Toumeya peeblesiana . 105

Christmas Suggestions _ 108

Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona

STAFF

Director . W. Taylor Marshall

Senior Botanist . James A. McCleary, Ph.D

Superintendent . W. Hubert Earle

Curator of Herbarium . E. R. (Jim) Blakley

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

EDITORIAL

The 1955-56 season gives every indi¬
cation of being larger in point of at¬
tendance than any previous year Judg¬
ing by October attendance.

Thursday afternoon lectures illus¬
trated by kodachrome slides will be re¬
sumed on November 3rd at 3:30 P.M.
unless the weather is too warm to close
the auditorium for the talk. Subjects
scheduled are:

Nov. 3 — Collecting cactus in Mexico.

Nov. 10 — Trees and shrubs of our
desert.

Nov. 17 — Animals and Birds of our
desert.

Nov. 24 — Thanksgiving Day — no
lecture.

Dec. 1 — Cactus Flowers.

The classes in desert plant lore and
use will begin on Nov. 16th and con¬
tinue for 5 successive Wednesdays at
3:30 P.M. How plants survive on des¬
erts, how to identify desert plants and
the method for growing native desert
plants in Arizona gardens are the sub¬
jects of these talks and a certificate of
completion of the course will be award¬
ed to all who attend all of the lectures.

There is no charge for either the classes
or the Thursday lectures.

The Cactomaniacs will meet in the
auditorium on Tuesday, Nov. 1st and on
Tuesday, Dec. 6th at 8 P.M. Koda¬
chrome slides will be shown, plants dis¬
cussed and refreshments served each
evening.

Any member of the Desert Botanical
Garden may become a Cactomaniac
without cost by attending the meetings.
Any interested person may become a
Cactomaniac by taking out a member¬
ship in the Desert Botanical Garden.

A meeting of the Executive Board of
the Arizona Cactus and Native Flora
Society and of the Advisory Board of
the Desert Botanical Garden will be
held on Monday evening, October 31st
at 7 P.M. in the Auditorium.

At this meeting plans for future de¬
velopment of the Garden will be dis¬
cussed. A method of increasing the
endowment of the Garden and details of
a new plan of insurance on our build¬
ings and equipment will be presented to
the Boards. We hope for a full attend¬
ance by the 23 members of these Boards.

OUR COLLECTORS VISIT MEXICO

(Part 2)

Charlie Mieg tells me that I made
an error when I stated in the first in¬
stallment of this epic that Gus and he
did not reach Manzanillo. They did
get there but were unable to make the
additional 25 miles north along the
coast to Bahia de Navidad where Dr.
Dawson reported finding a Melocactus.

In the five weeks following the de¬
parture of the Hermanns for home the
Miegs settled down to enjoy their vaca¬
tion and they remained at Fortin de los
Flores for 6 days then moved on to
Tehuacan, Puebla and Oaxaca.

At Oaxaca they visited the ruins of
Monte Alban and Charlie made several
side trips collecting plants but as the

rainy season was by now at its wettest
he was unable to cover many of the
back roads.

After two weeks at Oaxaca they
started south to the Guatemalan border
reaching Tehuantepec and Salina Cruz
the first day but because of heavy rain
were unable to get off the main road
for Melocactus curvispinus which is re¬
ported from Salina Cruz.

Tehuantepec afforded expensive but
not too good accommodations. Hot
water was absent but flies and mosqui¬
toes abounded in the hotel. Charlie
was interested in a statement in a travel
folder to the effect that the world’s
most beautiful women were there but

NOVEMBER, 1955

Ferocactus robustus

This Barrel forms large clumps in Southern
Mexico where the Meigs observed it.

he states that he saw only a few brown
skinned Valkyries averaging 250 pounds
on the hoof. The women of Tehuan¬
tepec are in the majority of the popula¬
tion by 2 to 1 and they are supposed to
be the bosses of the households but
Charlie asks very reasonably where the
women are not the bosses.

From Tehuantepec they continued
south in heavy rain thru Tuxla and over
rugged mountain country to Las Casas
where comfortable accommodations
were found.

The altitude at Las Casas is 8500 feet
and the night was very cold and con¬
tinuous rains made travel south unde¬
sirable so the next day they returned
to Oaxaca.

Descending from the higher moun¬
tains they had a tire blowout in a can¬
yon just west of Tuxla and here the air
was hot and humid and the tire change
became a real task.

Tehuantepec was the stopping point
for the night and then on to Oaxaca in
a rain storm. About 20 miles out of
Tehuantepec, Charlie stopped to inves¬
tigate a Cephalocereus and some plants
that he thought to be Ferocactus macro¬
discus but on close inspection proved to
be six plants of Melocactus curvispinus
(see September Bulletin) two of them
with cephaliums.

Thus by accident Charlie found the
plant for which he had made several
long, hard side trips. Charlie reacted
normally for him, he went into a war
dance with sound effects scaring his
wife who was sufe he had been struck
by a rattlesnake.

Our travellers were now on their re¬
turn trip and they came back through
Matamoros, Cuernavaca, Taxco, Aca¬
pulco, where extensive damage had
been caused by the excessive rains. Here
Charlie had a bout with malaria which

100

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

required hospitalization.

After recovering, thanks to a new
miracle drug, they returned to Mexico
City, Pachuca, Ixmiquilpan, Queretaro
and Guanajuato collecting enroute.

To San Luis Potosi, then Aguascal-
ientes and Guadalajara, Mazatlan and
an entry into the United States of
America at Nogales.

Charlie took colored movies of the
trip and showed two reels of excellent
pictures at the October meeting of the
Cactomaniacs. The Hermanns took
35mm Kodachrome slides of both the
plants and scenery and these will be
shown at the November meeting and
are well worth seeing.

About 200 species of plants were col¬
lected on the trip for the Garden of
which a number still have not been
identified and we will have to await
flowering and fruiting.

Several are very probably new spe¬

cies as is true of a peculiar Mammillaria
with hooked spines and with the grow¬
ing center (meristem) on the side of
each stem rather than at the apex. The
flower on this one is very large for the
genus and greenish-yellow in color.

Certain plants collected are very val¬
uable to us as not previously in our
Garden. Of these the newly erected
genus Neobauxbaumia tetetso is very
welcome. A mammillaria published by
Dawson as M. nejapensis was recollected
at the type locality and seems to us to
be M. compressa in one of its many
geological forms. We will have more
comments on this in a future issue of
the Bulletin.

This trip was well worth while for
the new information gathered even on
well known species and the Garden is
very grateful to both the Miegs and the
Hermanns for their contributions of
plants and pictures.

Lemaireocereus pruinosus

A plant in Desert Botanical Garden from Southern
Mexico and observed there by the Miegs.

NOVEMBER, 1955

101

• : tf* -irt' V ,r‘

A hybrid Echinopsis or Easter Lily Cactus.

NIGHT-BLOOMING HEDGEHOG

THE EASTER LILY CACTUS

Illustrated today are the flowers of
one of the hybrid Echinopsis or Easter
Lily Cactuses.

All species come from South America
and they are mostly globe-shaped plants
which cluster into large mounds and
bear large numbers of lily-like flowers
several times each summer.

The flowers of the true species are
from 4 to 9 inches long and white to
pink-magenta in color and most of them
open at night but remain open from one
to three days.

In the hybrids we find yellow and
lemon-yellow flowers and white flow¬
ers shading to magenta. Numerous oth¬
er color combinations are being devel¬
oped and should be available soon.

Echinopsis plants want richer soil and

much more water than do strictly des¬
ert species, and in Arizona at least,
they require some shading from our
summer sun.

Gardeners frequently remove all the
offsets from their Echinopsis plants on
the theory that simple plants flower
more freely but this is not true as
large clusters of heads not infrequently
bear 30 or 40 flowers at once and do
this several times each season.

We illustrate a typical cluster of
globe-shaped heads as grown in our
Garden and on the front cover we il¬
lustrate Echinopsis imperialis Hort, a
hybrid by Hummel which makes col¬
umnar branches to two feet or more
in height and produces very large
white flowers in profusion. The plant

NOVEMBER, 1955

103

An Echinopsis cluster in our garden.

illustrated bore more than 40 flowers
each time in three successive flower-
ngs last spring and summer. This
j.o\. Cl is v/hite with a green throat.

The generic name Echinopsis means
resembling a hedgehog which is appro¬
priate.

It is an old genus which was first
proposed by Zuccarini in 1837 and in
continuous use since that time. As
understood by Schumann the genus
Echinopsis contains species with long,
funnel shaped flowers both day and

night flowering and the narrow tubes
bear scales which subtend hair-like
spines.

Under Schumann’s classification the
later genera Lobivia, Mediolobivia,
Acantholobivia and Pseudolobivia are
included in the genus Echinopsis. We
agree with the classification of Schu¬
mann.

The genus Rebutia was recognized by
Schumann as a valid separation from
Echinopsis and we will discuss this
genus in an early issue of our Bulletin.

Charley Mieg says that at a recent dinner party he attended the guests were
so dumb that one lady thought Gila Bend was a reducing exercise.

104

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

REDISCOVERY OF TOUMEYA

By DENIS COWPER

The first rediscovery which we made
of Toumeya (Navajoa) peeblesiana, re¬
sulted, not from any planned expedi¬
tion, but from frustration and bad wea¬
ther. I had intended to spend the Mem¬
orial Day weekend of last year tracking
down some rumors which I had heard
of a small barrel cactus with yellow
flowers growing in the neighborhood of
B’staya on the Navajo reservation be¬
tween Crownpoint and Farmington with
the hope either that it prove to be a
new species, or to extend the known
range of Coloradoa Mesae verde. Leav¬
ing Saturday noon, we travelled west
from Belen to Thoreau on U. S. 66, and
thence north over a series of diminish¬
ing trails to White Rock where we
camped under some sandstone cliffs.
Everything was fine until about 5 a.m.
Sunday morning when the wind started
to blow. From then on it was sheer
misery. The trail from White Rock to
Farmington by way of B’staya is very
faint .and hard to follow even under the
best conditions; in a sandstorm it is
non-existent. All day long we wallowed
from one dune to the next, frequently
having to dig the pickup out when it
went over the axles, and finally, to¬
wards evening, we came out at Farm¬
ington without having had an opportun¬
ity to look for anything. The wind was
still blowing with a promise of con¬
tinuing indefinitely, so I abandoned any
idea of collecting around B’staya that
weekend, and, in the hope of getting
well away from the wind, we set out
for Holbrook with some vague thoughts
of looking for Navajoa the next day.
Arriving at about midi^ight we camped
on some sandhills east of town and
prayed for a calm day.

Monday dawned hot and still, and by
7 a.m. I was crawling up a hogback on
the south side of Marcou Mesa about
two miles west of Holbrook. Aoplying
tactics which had proved successful in

turning up Toumeya papyracantha in
widely scattered locations in New Mex¬
ico, I was travelling on hands and knees,
peeping under every blade of grass.
After some hours of crawling I found
a minute plant, about the size of a
kitchen match head, which I thought
might be a Navajoa. I was soon dis¬
illusioned when I came on a colony of
dwarf Sclerocactus whipplei with seed¬
lings amongst them just like the one
that I had found. By noon I had reached
the base of a hill facing on Leroux
Wash, and, since it was very hot, I
left everything but essentials and con¬
tinued crawling less encumbered. Four
or five hours later, somewhat disheart¬
ened, I returned to my pile of belong¬
ings and was about to leave, when I no¬
ticed a small round plant growing be¬
side a bunch of grass just a few feet
away. At first glance it looked like a
sickly C. whipplei, but, on closer in¬
spection, it proved to be a Navajoa,
somewhat misshapen from an old in¬
jury. Unable to believe my eyes I peer¬
ed at it for several minutes before its
reality dawned on me. With a wild cry
of “Eureka!!” I snatched it up and pro¬
ceeded to comb the hillside, nose to the
ground, in search of its fellows — to no
avail. Darkness forced me to abandon
the hunt as I had no flashlight with
which to continue.

About two weeks later I returned to
the location with my wife, Jane, to re¬
sume the search. We started at the
cairn which I had built where I found
the first plant, but, before we had been
there very long, the wind came up, and
blowing sand, especially at ground level,
made further search impossible.

We did not again have an opportunity
to visit Holbrook until Memorial Day
of this year. We made rendezvous with
Mr. and Mrs. Edsel Grey of Santa Fe.
also ardent collectors, and early Mon¬
day morning we set off up the east

NOVEMBER, 1955

105

bank of Leroux Wash hoping to find a
crossing upstream which would take us
onto Marcou Mesa from the north. We
were unable to reach our objective and
spent the greater part of the day climb¬
ing sandy hills without reward. By mid¬
afternoon we returned to Holbrook and
again started looking in the neighbor¬
hood of the original cairn. After about
an hour I found a dead Navajoa lying
on the ground about a mile south of the
spot where I had found the first one,
and, upon a minute inspection of the
ground, I found a live plant growing
within a few inches of it, which I had
till then overlooked as it was covered
with a film of sand. I built a cairn and
went to fetch the others. Unfortunately
the Greys were unable to stay longer,
but my wife and I returned to the spot,
and by dark we had found three seed¬
lings growing under Artemesia bushes
within a few feet of the cairn.

A few weeks later we exhibited one
of our plants at the Convention of the
Cactus and Succulent Society at El Paso,
and Mr. Marshall offered to help finance
the trip if we would go back and gath¬
er some plants for the Desert Garden.
Naturally we accepted.

On Saturday, August 13, we set out
from Belen a little after noon. Since
we knew that we could not reach Hol¬
brook in time to do much searching that
evening, we detoured south from Gallup
into Zuni country to investigate a re¬
ported location for Mammillaria wrightii,
and were rewarded by finding that plant
growing in great plenty amongst the
pinons. They were larger than in other
New Mexico locations and with com-
paritively scant spination.

We spent Saturday night in Holbrook
and started out at dawn with an earnest
intention to find Navajoa in quantity.
First we devoted some six or seven
hours to scouring the hills immediately

east of Holbrook and south of U. S. 66,
and those immediately south of the

Little Colorado, both without success.
Then we tried getting onto Marcou
Mesa on the road a few hundred yards
west of the inspection station. Unfor¬
tunately it had been raining and the
pickup went axle deep in mud. With
the aid of a shovel, a bumper jack, much
effort and corrosive language, we
emerged some two hours later with a
coating of camouflage which rendered
us indistinguishable from the mud hole.

Undaunted, we tried again a few miles
lurther west, and this time we managed
to get through to the mesa. Before leav¬
ing the truck we fortified ourselves
from a jug of wine which we had pro¬
vided against such emergencies, and
then again sallied forth. There was
little or no wind and it was blisteringly
hot, but, by refreshing ourselves period¬
ically from the jug, we managed to sur¬
vive the two mile climb over the crest.
We knew from our previous experience
the type of terrain in which to look for
Navajoa, and, on the fifty-third likely
looking slope, about five miles south
and east of the crest we found them in
relative plenty. There were numerous
colonies containing several individuals
each, all swollen up from the recent
rain and washed clean of dust so that
they were visible even from a standing
position. Some were growing in the
open amongst the gravel and others
under the Artemesia bushes. Those in
the shade were rather columnar, while
those in the open were applanate and
superficially resembled seedlings of E.
horizonthalonius.

After spending the balance of the
afternoon examining the different col¬
onies, we discarded the empty jug and
returned home well satisfied that we
had located Toumeya (Navajoa) peeble-
siana with sufficient certainty that we
would have no difficulty in returning
to collect further plants at a later date
if it should prove necessary.

106

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

The eight plants collected for us by Mr. and Mrs. Denis Cowper
Toumeya peeblesiana (Croizat) Marshall

Myrtillocactus schenckii collected by Meig

NOVEMBER, 1955

107

DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN BOOKSTORE
P. O. Box 547 Tempo, Arizona

CHRISTMAS GIFT SUGGESTIONS

The most acceptable of all gifts for plant lovers is a years subscription to

Saguaroland Bulletin. The cost 3.00 and it reminds the recipient ten times a year
of your generosity.

BOOKS FOR PLANT GROWERS

Arizona "actuses Marshall paper binding 1.10

” ” ” cloth binding 1.85

All 62 species of cactuses native to Arizona described and illustrated.

The Flowering Cactus R. C. & C. M. Proctor 7.65

81 brilliant color plates and 34 protographs of Cactus. Edited by Carlson.

The Giant flactus Forest and Its World Howes 7.75

Trees and Shrubs of Southwestern Desert Benson & Darrow 8.75

Glossary of Succulent Plant Terms Marshall & Woods 4.15

What Kinda Cactus Izzat Reg Manning 2.40

Cacti for the Amateur Haselton 3.85

Succulents lor the Amateur Brown et al 3.85

Animals of the Southwestern Desert Olin 1.10

Flowers of the Southwestern Deserts Dodge 1.10

” ” ” ” Mesas Patraw 1.10

” ” ” ” Mountains Arnberger 1.10

PACKAGED CACTUS PLANTS

Attractive packages with cut cello -

phane packing

No.

5 plants

1.35

No.

10 plants

1.90

No.

low

10 white spined plants,
collectors items

3.40

No.

15 plants

3.10

No.

16 larger plants

5.80

No.

24 large plants, many of
flowering size

8.50

PRICKLY PEAR PRODUCTS

Prickly Pear Delight

A Turkish delight type of confect-
tion made from prickly pear cactus
fruits, provocative flavor.

1/2 pound box 1.10

1 pound box 1.95

Prickly Pear Jelly

4-12 oz. glasses in shipping carton.

A clear red jelly of exceptional
flavor. 3.45

KACHINAS

These dolls are made of drift wood,
always cottonwood root which has been
water-logged and sun dried. They are
carved by hand and hand colored with
tempera paints and are each an accurate
reproduction of Hopi Indian Gods and
made by a Hopi-Abbott Sakiestewa. We
have many different Kachinas in each
price range.

4 inches high

1.65

5 inches high

2.20

6 inches high

3.30

All quoted prices are

United States.

postpaid

108

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Published and owned by the Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Societj', sponsors
of the Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona, P. O. Box 547, Tempe. Saguaroland
Bulletin attempts to promote the Garden and to provide information on the desert
plants and their culture. Subscription $3.00 per year, the subscription including
active membership in the Society and the Desert Botanical Garden. Issued 10 times
a year.

W. TAYLOR MARSHALL, Editor

Volume 9 December, 1955 No. 10

Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society

EXECUTIVE BOARD

Chairman of Board - - John H. Eversole Treasurer _ Tom Goodnight

President _ W. Taylor Marshall Secretary _ Angela Bool

Vice President . . . . Lou Ella Archer Chief Counsel _ William Elliott

BOARD MEMBERS

Edward L. Burrall Leslie J. Mahoney Mel Hinman

Reg Manning John H. Rhuart

Table of Contents

Editorial _ 111

Plant Protection Law _ 111

Bishop’s Cap Star Cactus _ _ _ _ _ 113

Rainbow Cactuses _ 115

Appreciation of Desert Plants _ _ _ _ 116

Desert Botanical Garden of Arizona

STAFF

Director . W. Taylor Marshall

Senior Botanist . James A. McCleary, Ph.D

Superintendent . W. Hubert Earle

Curator of Herbarium . E. R. (Jim) Blakley

110

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

EDITORIAL

The star cactus on our cover for this
issue is a reminder of the near approach
of the Christmas Season and it carries
to you the very best wishes of all of
the Garden staff for a very happy
Christmas and a happy and prosperous
New Year.

As this is written we of the Garden
are preparing for Thanksgiving Day and
we do not need to look far for many
causes of thanks. Our garden has grown
during the past year in equipment, in
area of plantings and number of plants
and we continue to have ever increasing
numbers of visitors. Our membership
is at the highest point in our history,
372, but still much below the member¬
ship such a garden justifies.

At a meeting of the Executive Board
on October 31st, we decided to purchase
insurance coverage to 90% of the value
of our buildings and equipment for the
first time in our history. We have car¬
ried only about 25% coverage up to
now.

The cost of the insurance has been a
severe strain on the Treasury and we
will have to curtail in many ways to
meet it but the assurance that we are
protected comes as a great relief from
worry to your Director and all the staff.

Mr. Earle has just moved to our Gar¬
den a fine collection of plants donated
to us by Mrs. J. C. Whitaker from the
garden of her late husband in Glendale.
43 large plants of Peniocereus greggii
and 5 nice plants of Lophocereus schot-
tii were just part of this gift for which
we offer Mrs. Whitaker our sincere
thanks.

At the Executive Board meeting two
plans for fund raising were approved.
The most important in our view was a
plan to try to interest public spirited
citizens to make the Garden a benefi¬
ciary in their wills according to their
ability. Our attorneys will prepare the
necessary codicils to any will without
charge and each board member will try
to interest prospective donors.

The desirability of increased support
from business houses in Arizona was
also stressed.

We feel that the Desert Botanical
Garden offers to the out of state visitor
an opportunity to get the answer to
questions on our desert vegetation and
provides many days of entertainment.

Since many of our business institu¬
tions depend on out of state visitors for
their success it is but natural that they
should support any efforts to make our
visitors happier.

One board member, Mrs. Gilliland,
secured a $25 annual membership from
a leading business house the very next
day after the Board meeting.

LECTURES

Our Wednesday afternoon series of
studies in “Appreciation of Desert
Plants” will continue each Wednesday
at 3:30 P. M. to December 14th and a
new series of 5 talks will start in Jan¬
uary.

Our Thursday afternoon illustrated
lectures in December will have as their
focus the following subjects:

Dec. 1 — Cactus Flowers.

Dec. 8 — Northern Arizona.

Dec. 15 — Southern Arizona.

Dec. 22 — A Trip to Mexico.

Dec. 29 — Desert Animals and Birds.

Jan. 5 — Desert Trees, Shrubs and
Wild Flowers.

All of our lectures start at 3:30
promptly.

PLANT PROTECTION LAW

Recently we had a letter from a gen¬
tleman in Albuquerque, N. M., advising
us of the collection of over 200 speci¬
mens of Toumeya peeblesiana by mem¬
bers of the Albuquerque Cactus Club.
He thought we would be interested to
know that so many of a very rare spe¬
cies had been collected.

We were interested.

We wrote him a letter explaining the
very great possibility of the complete

DECEMBER, 1955

111

elimination of the species by such over¬
collection and quoted to him our Ari¬
zona law for the protection of desert
plants and suggested that the Albu¬
querque group consider seriously the
subject of plant conservation and to
make conservation their aim rather
than excessive plant collection, (One
member was reported as having over
400 specimens of Toumeya papyracan-
tha, a rare New Mexican species.)

In reply the gentleman thanked me
for my suggestion and stated that he
did not know of Arizona’s law and he
thought that the other members of the
Albuquerque group were equally un¬
aware of it.

Possibly others who read our Bulle¬
tin may not be aware of Arizona’s desert
plant protection law so we give here¬
with a brief summary of it:

Plants protected: — All members of
the following families: Ferns, lily fam¬
ily (including Yuccas), iris family,
amaryllis family (including century

plants), orchid family, orpine family
(including Sedum, Dudley and Grapto-

petalum), saxifrage family and cactus
family.

All species of columbine, lobelia,
shooting star, primroses, ocotillo and fan
palm.

The following individual species: —
desert holly, scarlet gilia, western red¬
bud, smoke tree, crucifixion thorn
(Holacantha emoryi) and flannel bush.

Prohibited plants can only be remov¬
ed from public lands under permit from
the State Department of Agriculture and
for scientific or educational purposes
only.

These plants can be removed from
private lands providing that you obtain
written permission from the owner and
file a certified copy of the permission
with the County Recorder in the county
in which the land is located, and a copy
to the State Department of Agriculture
who will then issue a permit to trans¬
port one shipment for a $5.00 fee.

Violations subject to fine of not over
$300.00 and each violation is a separate
offense.

Any peace officer is empowered to en¬
force this act.

Star Cactus or Bishop’s Cap.

112

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Astrophytum myriostigma Lemaire
Bishop's Cap Cactus

The Bishop’s Cap cactus is native to
the States of San Luis Potosi, Tamauli-
pas, Coahuila and Hidalgo in Mexico
and it has long been a favorite of collec¬
tors, not only for its unique shape and
rock-like structure but also for the
large yellow flowers freely produced
from early spring throughout the sum¬
mer and early fall.

Entirely spineless, the plant can be
easily handled and it grows equally
well in indoor culture or in outside
beds where temperatures do not go too
far below 32°.

A number of varieties have been listed

based on the number of ribs or the
height of the plant, but most of such
separation is doubtful indeed as is true
of variety quadrocostatus (4 ribs) which
may have 4 ribs in youth but later add
several more ribs. One plant with five
ribs in our garden was injured in the
growing center and sent up four
branches which were 4-5-6 and 8

ribbed respectively.

In Cactaceae I attempted to make a
key for the identification of the varieties
of this species based on a previous key
by A. Moeller of Mexico as follows:

ASTROPHYTUM MYRIOSTIGMA

Flower with a red center variety coahuilensis

Flower all yellow

Tall columnar plants var. columnaris

Globose to short cylindrical plants

Plants always 4 ribbed var. quadrocostatus

Plants mostly 5 ribbed

Plants spotted with white true species

Plants not white spotted

Plants not depressed in center var. tamaulipensis
Plants depressed in center

Flowers small var. potosina

Flowers large var. nuda

Numerous hybrids of this and other
of the additional three species of this
genus (A. asterias, A ornatum and A.
capricorne) are on the market and some
of them are very attractive plants.

In one of our illustrations of the
Bishop’s Cap you will note a specimen
of the Gila Monster (Helioderma sus-
pectum), one of our most colorful and
least understood desert animals.

The Gila Monster is normally sluggish
and shy. He will make every effort to
avoid contact with people. It will at¬
tempt to hide by seeking the cover of
bushes or cactuses but if cornered or
annoyed it may advance with open jaws
spluttering and hissing. It has a poison

sac but no fangs. Instead it has grooved
teeth and it is necessary for the animal
to chew the poison into its victim. There¬
fore it is only painful if one can prompt¬
ly release oneself but the poison may be
introduced if the animal hangs on.

However, only the largest of Gila
Monsters produce enough poison to be
fatal to an adult, but a physician should
be called immediately if one is bitten.

The poison is much like that of a
rattlesnake and the same treatment is
indicated as for rattlesnake poisoning.

The Gila Monster is protected by law
in Arizona and killing one may be pun¬
ished by a heavy fine. They may not
be kept in captivity legally.

DECEMBER, 1955

113

Astrophytum myriostigma from Mexico.
Note Gila Monster on ground.

Three of the Kachina Dolls described
on page 120.

114

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Lace or Cob Cactus. Echinocereus pectinatus variety

reichenbachii from Texas.

THE RAINBOW CACTUSES

Our color plate this month is of the
Lace Rainbow Cactus, also called the
Corn Cob Cactus.

It is a member of a large genus in
the Cactus family which consists of
plants of medium size but bearing rela¬
tively large and colorful flowers.

Collectively they are called “hedge¬
hog cactuses” and belong to the genus
Echinocereus which is native to the
United States and Mexico.

The plant illustrated is Echinocereus
pectinatus variety reichenbachii and it
is found in Oklahoma, Texas and in
northern Mexico in the states of Coa-
huila and Chihuahua.

Breaking down the scientific name
we find that Echinocereus is made from
two Greek words meaning hedgehog

and wax candle — and this implies that
this plant, whose stems cluster like
candles in a candelabrum, are covered
with spines like a hedgehog.

The specific name pectinatus refers
to the comb-like arrangement of the
spines which simulate two combs laid
back to back. The variety reichen¬
bachii indicates that this particular
variety has been named in honor of
Reichenbach.

As is true of any cactus species with
a large range there are many forms
taken by our plant in various locations.
Spine color varies greatly, ranging from
all white to all cream or brown or red¬
dish, and in many locations the plant
is simple, that is it consists of one stem
only. In other locations it clusters from

DECEMBER, 1955

115

the base forming a group of 3 to 10
stems.

The flowers of the hedgehog cactuses
are all largej in relation to the plant
size, and in shades of white, yellow,
magenta and red.

The fruits are shaped like a fig and
about the same size. They are red when
ripe and in i most species the spines
which cover the fruits when green drop

j Appreciation of

' W. TAYLOR

FOREWORD

When the present director of the Des¬
ert Botanical Garden arrived in 1946 to
assume his duties it was his first concern
that the Garden should offer to the gen¬
eral public information on desert plants
so that those iwho wished might find an
appreciation of the unusual vegetation
of the arid districts.

To accomplish this the Garden pub¬
lished our Self Guided Nature Walk
pamphlet and gave Sunday afternoon
lectures on various plant families.

However, many of our visitors ex¬
pressed a deep interest in finding out
just why and how the plants now occu¬
pying arid regions were able to survive
the long rainless periods and also how
the plants could be utilized in Arizona
gardens.

To answer this request the Garden
started a Wednesday afternoon class
which continued for five successive
weeks. We now have three series of
classes each season, one in mid-Novem¬
ber, one in January and the third in
March.

Thirty-nine persons joined the No¬
vember class in 1955, which is the larg¬
est group we have had so far.

After five years the pattern of the
instruction has been standardized and
we now feel that the outline of the work

*The first of a series of

off as the fruit ripens or can be easily
brushed off. The fruits are edible and
have a flavor resembling strawberry and
the plants are frequently called “straw¬
berry cactus.”

In much of its range, Reichenbach’s
variety occupies territory with low win¬
ter temperatures and plants from such
an area can be grown outdoors in many
of our colder states.

Desert Plants*

MARSHALL

should be printed in pamphlet form after
it has first been printed serially in
Saguaroland Bulletin. ;

This little booklet will cover the im¬
portant points of our lectures and can be
used in conjunction with the more de¬
tailed instruction given to the members
of the class.

At the same time the booklet will
serve to refresh the memory of our stu¬
dents in the years to come.

The material here presented has been
derived from works by various authors
as listed in the bibliography and from
the experience of our own staff at the
Garden.

All cultural directions are the result of
our own research.

Chapter 1

A desert, for the purpose of this
study, may be defined as an area of
little rainfall and a high percentage of
sunshine hours and high temperatures.

In such an area only the most heroic
plants can survive and prosper. All of
the plants now found on our deserts
are relics of a heavy plant population
that occupied the area when rainfall
was greater.

The survivors are those species that
gradually built up resistance to drought
conditions as the area became increas¬
ingly dry.

articles on desert plants.

116

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Creosote Bush (Larrea Tridentata) desert.

The various and ingenious methods
by which the plants survive is the basis
of this study designed to increase our
appreciation of this remarkable vege¬
tation.

The writer feels that the study of any
form of plant life will strengthen the
faith of any student in the certainty of
divine guidance of all things. A study
of desert plants in particular indicates
an intelligence greater than mere
chance.

Four major desert areas are noted in
the United States of which two extend
south into Mexico. Each can be deter¬
mined by certain species of plants pe¬
culiar to it.

The largest desert in area is the Great
Basin or Great American Desert which
centers around the Salt Lake in Utah
and includes portions of Utah, Colorado
and northern Nevada and portions of
northern Arizona. The prevailing plant
of this desert is sagebrush (Artemisia
tridentata).

The Mojave desert occupies that por¬
tion of southern California roughly north

DECEMBER, 1955

of the San Bernardino-Riverside County
line and including Inyo County and the
western portions of Los Angeles and
Kern Counties, southern Nevada and the
western part of Mojave County in Ari¬
zona, along the Colorado River.

The Indigo Bush and Parry’s Saltbush
are outstanding endemic plants.

The Sonoran desert includes Baja
California and Sonora in Mexico and the
Salton Sea basin and Colorado River ba¬
sin of California (called the Colorado
desert) and southern Arizona (called the
Arizona desert).

The California fan palm (Washington-
ia filifera). Bear grass (Nolina sps) and
the desert apricot (Prunus fremontii)
are endemic to the Colorado desert
while the palmilla (Yucca elata), white
thorn (Acacia constricta), desert honey¬
suckle (Anisacanthus thurberi) and
desert elderberry (Sambucus cerulea)
identify the Arizona desert.

The Chihuahuan desert extends from
the States of Chihuahua and Coahuila in
Mexico into western Texas, New Mexico
and the extreme southeastern part of

117

Cochise County, Arizona, and the vege¬
tation generally resembles that of the
Sonoran desert in that the Creosote bush
(Larrea tridentata), the Mesquites and
Palo Verdes are prominent.

For convenience the desert plants can
be separated into four general divisions:

1. Succulent Plants.

2. Xerophytes.

3. Mesophytes.

4. Annuals.

These in turn contain subdivisions as
we will see as each category is described
in detail.

Succulent plants are capable of stor¬
ing food and water either in their stems
or in their leaves during the short per¬
iods of rainfall for use during the long
dry spells.

This storage results in a swollen ap¬
pearance in the stem or leaf which
makes the identification of succulent
plants very easy.

In the deserts of the United States
stem succulence is a character prin¬

cipally of the Cactus family (Cactaceae)
but it is observed also in some species
of Spurges (Euphorbiaceae), notably the
“Candelillo” of the Big Bend district of
Texas.

On the African and Asiatic deserts
stem succulence is noted in Spurges
(Euphorbiaceae), Orpines (Crassula-
ceae), some Milkweeds (Asclepiadaceae)
and in a number of other plant families.

Leaf succulence is noted in new world
species of Agave or century plants
(Amaryllidaceae), Yucca (Liliaceae)
and Orpine (Crassulaceae) while in the
old world leaf succulence is noted in
the Lily family (Liliaceae), Orpines
(Crassulaceae), Fig Marigolds (Mesem-
brianthemaceae). Spurges (Euphorbia¬
ceae) and other plant families.

The Xerophytes are plants which sur¬
vive drought conditions in one or more
of several ways:

1. By leaf reduction because water

is lost thru leaves.

2. By shedding leaves in dry weath-

A succulent plant, Echinocactus platyacanthus.

118

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

Ironwood Tree (Olneya tesota) a xerophyte.

er and “hibernating” during
dry periods.

3. By sending deep tap roots down

to the underground water table.

4. By building a coating of wax or

lacquer on their leaves to pre¬
vent water loss.

5. By a combination of the above

methods or some of them.

All of the trees, shrubs and sub¬
shrubs of desert areas belong in this
classification.

The mesophytes are normal plants in
all ways who choose only stream beds

in which there is an available flow of
water either on the surface or below
the surface as their dwelling place. An
example is the cottonwood tree (Pepulus
fremontii).

The desert annuals usually show
some modification from their mountain
relatives either in leaf reduction, waxy
coating or hairs on leaves or in greatly

accelerated life processes.

Each of these divisions will be con¬
sidered in greater detail in our follow¬
ing text.

A-24 plant Box of Cactus.

DECEMBER, 1955

119

DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN BOOKSTORE
P. O. Box 547 Tempo, Arizona

CHRISTMAS GIFT SUGGESTIONS

The most acceptable of all gifts for plant lovers is a years subscription to
Saguaroland Bulletin. The cost 3.00 and it reminds the recipient ten times a year
of your generosity.

BOOKS FOR PLANT GROWERS

Arizona Cactuses Marshall paper binding 1-10

” ” ” cloth binding

All 62 species of cactuses native to Arizona described and illustrated.
The Flowering Cactus R. C. & C. M. Proctor

81 brilliant color plates and 34 protographs of Cactus. Edited by Carlson.

The Giant Cactus Forest and Its World Howes

Trees and Shrubs of Southwestern Desert Benson & Darrow

Glossary of Succulent Plant Terms Marshall & Woods

Cactaceae, Marshall & Bock

What Kinda Cactus Izzat Reg Manning

Cacti for the Amateur Haselton

Succulents for the Amateur Brown et al

Animals of the Southwestern Desert Olin

Flowers of the Southwestern Deserts Dodge

” ” ” ” Mesas Patraw

” ” ” ” Mountains Arnberger

7.75

8.75

4.15

8.75

2.40

3.85

1.10

PACKAGED CACTUS PLANTS
Attractive packages with cut cello-

phane packing

No. 5 5 plants

1.35

No.

10 plants

1.90

No.

low

10 white spined plants,
collectors items

3.40

No.

15 plants

3.10

No.

16 larger plants

5.80

No.

24 large plants, many of
flowering size

8.50

PRICKLY PEAR PRODUCTS

Prickly Pear Delight

A Turkish delight type of confect-
tion made from prickly pear cactus
fruits, provocative flavor.

1/2 pound box 1.10

1 pound box 1-95

Prickly Pear Jelly

4-12 oz. glasses in shipping carton.

A clear red jelly of exceptional
flavor. 3.45

KACHINAS

inches high

1.65

inches high

2.20

inches high

3.30

SETS OF COLOR SLIDES OF GARDEN

No. 514 — 8 slides including views of
main building, beds and plants.

No. 515 — 8 slides taken in garden.

Each set $2.00 postpaid

All quoted prices are postpaid in
United States.

120

SAGUAROLAND BULLETIN

You LIKE the Desert?

Do you want to see ALL of it in one trip?

Here in Phoenix is the Number One Desert Botanical
Garden in the WORLD! The second largest (when com¬
pleted) will be located 80 miles outside Johannesburg,
South Africa. Scientists come from South Africa to see
the Gardens here. YOU can see it this morning!

Thousands of species of cacti and desert plant life
grow right here. Visitors are welcome, admission is FREE.
155,000 saw it last year. The Desert Botanical Garden of
Arizona is supported entirely by private membership.

See how nature adapts plant life to an existence
where there is very little water. Some plants look like
rocks, and require close inspection to find them. Many
other oddities peculiar to the desert are well worth the
short trip to see them. See how cacti store water to
carry them through dry times.

Conduct your own tour — follow the walks — iden¬
tify the various types by the little brochure you receive
for 10c at the office. The most entertaining, most rea¬
sonable and certainly the most enjoyable time you have
spent in the sunshine learning about the desert.

You are in Arizona’s Valley of the Sun, a veritable
oasis in the desert. We hope you like our desert country.
We hope you see all of it! DO come visit us!

DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN OF ARIZONA

In PAPAGO PARK, east of PHOENIX

Between East Van Buren & East McDowell Road
on Highways 60-70-80-89 i

OPEN DAILY 9 A.M. - 5 P.M.

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