But one more growth of this strange cactus land must claim our attention ere the sun completes his journey across the western skies and the goddess of Evening draws the mantle of night over the land of the burning sun. It is a Bisnaga native to the foothills and high mesas of northern Arizona and Utah, western Colorado, and New Mexico, but we cannot take the time on this trip to study in northern parts. Science tells us that Whipple’s Visnagita is one of the smaller of the cactus clan and is generally to be seen peering out from under other desert shrubs. Little is known about this very interesting but tiny growth. It is far removed from all of its near relatives in distribution, and is to be found as far north as Pleasant Valley near Great Salt Lake in Utah. The ashy-white thorns are half an inch long or longer, many of them dangerously recurved and hooked; its large bell-shaped blossoms form a halo of rose and purple about the tips of this diminutive cactus, quite pretty with the lavender filaments and reddish styles; the styles are finely hairy their entire length, a very rare characteristic among cacti. And now the trek of a long desert day is done. Tired and thirsty, we jot down our notes for future study and reference, and sit down in the shade of some desert rock or hummock, to gaze out over the receding panorama before us, wondering if, after all, it doesn’t look like a great desert graveyard, the big and little Visnaga strangely enigmatic monuments of some buried past, standing by till Time shall obliterate all. The Barrel Cactus Group; Visnaga and Visnagita (_Echinocactus_) How to identify and how they grow Small or large plants that are globular or cylindric and strongly ribbed with sharp stout thorns, suggesting a barrel in size and shape, from a foot to three or four feet high, sometimes reaching nine feet, growing singly or in groups of two to four or more. The central spines are the strongest, usually one or more hooked; the radial spines also are stout, the radial bristles or threads if present are somewhat firm or rather weak in texture. The ridges run lengthwise over the whole plant body, and are covered with a dense lacework of thorns which are often cross-ridged and of several kinds, forming in clusters, a network over the entire plant. This lacework of spines is rather similar to the network of thorns covering the Hedgehog Cactus. But the _Echinocactus_ can be identified by its barrel shape. The stems are mostly simple. There are no leaves nor spicules. The flowers are of medium size and are borne toward the tips of the plants, opening in the forenoon and closing in the afternoon of the same day. The blossoms persist on the mature fruit, which is shallowly tubercled, and scaly. The _Echinocacti_ have no spines on the ovaries or fruit, which differentiates them from the _Echinocereus_ Cacti. The stems of some species contain a fluid which, though a little saline, is palatable on the desert. How to grow