The desert is an enormous caldron of burning sand, rolling and rising and sinking here and there. But in the spring these arid lands present a striking parade of beautiful flowers—a veritable fashion show! It is early in the morning of a cloudless April day; the night dew is on most of the blossoms, and they are fresh from its bath. There is no dust and their colors are still bright as we inhale the fragrant scent. The desert glow is brightening, for the sun is rising just over the eastern rim of the foothills, and we stop to gaze upon the first of a colony of cacti called the Cereus Group. The name Cereus is musical; we find that it is from the Latin, meaning torch, and is given to this genus in the family of Cactaceæ because of the beautiful candelabralike branching of some of its members. GROWTH AND HABITATS They are trees, shrubs, or climbers, growing erect or spreading out with ribbed branches; they are the tallest and largest of the Cactaceæ. The flowers are funnel-form, some are elongated and very showy, and we find that they bloom mostly in the darkness of the desert night. Perhaps this night blooming accounts for the softness and brilliance of their delicate colorings, as of the orchids, the most gorgeous of which as you know come from the deep shaded forests of the South American jungles. The genus Cereus is very large, comprising more than two hundred varieties. Their native habitats are in South America, Central America, the West Indies, Mexico, and southern United States. Caterpillar Cactus (_Cereus eruca_) _Lower California, Magdalena Island_ The first of these growths to attract our attention is the weird Creeping Devil cactus! How apropos is this nomenclature! We see it here in Lower California, _Cereus eruca_, creeping along the coastal lands and over the fine drifted sands of the seashore like countless thousands of caterpillars crawling over the ground, worming their way slowly across the sandy plains to the sea. This remarkable cactus grows on the coastal plains of Lower California and is abundant on Magdalena Island in very sandy soil, preferring the softer sand for its habitat and particularly the wind-drifted material, over small areas of which it forms a more or less continuous covering, broken here and there by dead stems. In the clumps of this cactus the desert foxes live; for in its natural habitat it prevents the sand from drifting and offers homes for the little animals of the region.