We are approaching the beautiful Santa Rita Mountains not far from Tucson, Arizona, nearing also the end of our long afternoon’s work, for the blue and purple haze that betokens the close of a hot desert day is gathering around the distant peaks and the sun hangs low over the horizon, seeming loath to bid farewell to mountain and desert cañons and to weary mortals here below. A symphony in purple and yellow greets our tired eyes and brightens our jaded spirits as we motor slowly along the highroad; and we stop to get a closer view of this handsomest of all the brilliant _Opuntia_, the Purple Prickly Pear. A dash of purple in the sepals tones into golden yellow in petals and stamens of the large beautiful blooms, three inches across when full open and nearly four inches in length, the lemon and deep yellow flowers in vivid contrast to the bright purple joints of _santa rita_ in the spring. Then in summer the densely glaucous gray-blue joints form a striking color scheme together with the bright purple fruit. Two to five feet tall, the plants branch from a short thick trunk in numerous stemlike appendages which look like so many “flapjacks” on the desert. They prefer the gravelly or rocky soils at levels of three to five thousand feet, and grow over drab _bajadas_ and somber foothill slopes near the high Santa Ritas, where they were discovered by Dr. David Griffiths and named for this majestic range which towers in sight of these brilliantly beautiful and slender-spined pearlike cacti. These rare plants are finding a place in many gardens throughout the Southwest, and even abroad in England they may be grown satisfactorily in indoor cactus gardens. Smooth Prickly Pear (_Opuntia laevis_) _Southern Arizona_ The Smooth Prickly Pear is a dainty morsel, and how the cattle like to espy it in the few open spaces where it ventures to grow! For this cactus is nearly spineless and clings to the inaccessible cañon slopes where stock cannot prey upon it. In April and May it forms a striking picture on the desert canvas, a great patch of large, showy, lemon-colored blossoms peering forth from the jutting and protecting rocks on all sides of the steep mountain cliffs here in southern Arizona; in July it changes this brilliant coloring with almost kaleidoscopic swiftness to purple and pink splashes of the fine large fruit. Truly the desert is aflame with glory when the prickly pears come forth in bloom! Is it the soul of the Flower trying to find expression in beauty and fragrance, attuned to the soul of the poet and the lover of desert creation, striving to grow in tune with the Universe? Here is a lesson, perchance, that he who runs may read; for those who can pierce the vale of mysteries it is called “in tune with the Infinite.”