Out on the great Arizona desert the Pincushion Cacti appear in abundance; the vast stretches contain a surprise for the tourist and the wearied student in these bits of desert growth, peering from between rocks and cobblestones or lying in clumps in crevices of the rocks among the foothills. All colors of the rainbow, it would seem, are woven into exquisite patterns by Nature in her baby cacti, their brilliantly painted flowering segments spreading out in spring array like so many gilded rays of the spectrum and creating the mirage of a gayly tinted rainbow, dazzling the eyes of the traveler as he speeds along the highway across the desert. Deep in the recesses of the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, northward into southern Utah and Nevada, and southward again around the Superstition Mountains in Arizona and the Santa Ritas (near Tucson), these dainty cacti, when in bloom, color the landscape far and near, on the mesas and along the bajadas into Southern California, and far south into old Mexico, where they come forth in dozens of flowering varieties. And here we must leave our tiny symbols of the Cactacea clan, for the shadows are beginning to lengthen; the sun has finished his journey across the western heavens and we bid farewell to our baby cacti, beautiful rainbows of the desert, for to-morrow we continue our journey over sandy arid lands, and travel a different way among the weird Fantastic Clan. The Pincushion Group; Baby Cacti (_Mammillaria_ and _Coryphantha_) How to identify and how they grow These are funny little ball-like plants, an inch to a foot in diameter and height, often broader than they are tall, the upper surface almost flattened, while the main part of the plant is a carrot-shaped fleshy root. The stems are mostly simple, sometimes branched; they grow singly or occasionally in clusters, and are not ribbed but studded with numerous tubercles spirally arranged. These are the smallest of the Cactaceæ, hence called the Baby Cacti, and are full of star-shaped spines with an extra-long one in each cluster, all thorns hooked over on the ends. The spines are slender but stout, mostly of two kinds and generally less than a half-inch long, sharp and needlelike, and usually with hairs. There are no spicules nor leaves. The flowers are small or medium-sized and open in the forenoon, closing in the afternoon of the same day. The fruit is rather small, is smooth and has no tubercles, scales, nor bracts. These dainty cacti often cling together in groups, and the symmetrical arrangement of the flowers and spines, the brilliant harmony of colorings in both, and the spirally arranged tubercles give the plants a most attractive appearance. How to grow