We are nearing the end of our long quest for the brilliant Prickly Pears, having crossed the Arizona and California deserts on our way, dipped down into southern Texas and Northern Mexico, and now are intent on finding a distinctive growth here in southwestern California called _Opuntia chlorotica_. Light purple is the fruit of this typical cactus, the stems yellow or light green; straw-colored and brownish are the slender bristlelike spines, translucent yellow the spicules. Almost a gay rainbow of itself, _chlorotica_ graces the mountain cañons and foothills of six great sections of the vast southwestern desert. A short trunk, half a foot or a foot tall, branches into many jointed “flapjacks” six to ten inches long and about as wide, which combine to form a compact rounded head three to six feet high. The scaly fissured faces of the pearlike basal joints so typical of the prickly pear are light brown and purplish, the others pale green and bluish green; the slender yellowish spicules are not quite half an inch long, the bristling spines a trifle longer. The bloom, as of so many of the prickly pear species, is of a light lemon-yellow with a brilliant orange-red center, about two and one-half inches long and across; like others of this clan it opens early in the morning, closing when the late afternoon shadows begin to spell the end of the hot desert day. Seldom appearing in clumps, generally growing alone, _chlorotica_ delights to cover the foothills and low mountain cañons with her pretty lemon blossoms, her short stout trunks, and their numerous flat pearlike joints. Porcupine Prickly Pear (_Opuntia hystricina_) _Northern Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada_ As we approach Los Angeles, California, we recall a peculiar little growth in northern Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico called _Opuntia hystricina_; also the Porcupine Prickly Pear, its long slender needlelike spines, reddish or red-brown, giving the plant a shaggy appearance strongly resembling that bristling little animal. In fact the name of the species _hystricina_ comes from the Greek word for “porcupine.” Only a foot or so tall, its thorny stems spread out into loose clumps, the flat hairy joints, five or six inches long, looking just like so many bristling young porcupines; then with a crescent mass of light yellowish spicules an eighth-inch long or less, and six to ten finely grooved white and brownish spines, encircled sometimes with white and brown bands. In lovely contrast appear the beautiful large purple blossoms, three inches long and with as great a spread when fully expanded in April or May, opening but once, then closing in late afternoon never to open again. Thriving in the clay loam and gravelly soils of mountains and rocky cañons in northern Arizona and Nevada, ranging far up from five to seven thousand feet, this hardy cactus will endure temperatures even below zero without the slightest injury.