The Beaver Tail, or _Opuntia basilaris_, gets both its common and its specific name from the appearance of the joints growing from the base, which are covered with spicules and resemble a beaver’s tail. This plant is usually about a foot tall and two or three feet across the spread of the rosettelike growth, with the fanlike or beaver-tail joints coming from the bases. These joints are about six by nine inches and of a blue-green suffused with purple and covered with fine white hairs. The older joints become crosswise wrinkled. The red-brown spicules are very abundant, short and easily dislodged. There are no spines on the plant. The purple flowers are very numerous, about three inches in width and length. They appear in April and May, and the fruit, which is covered with many fine hairs, comes in July. How to grow Plants are uninjured by temperatures twenty-five degrees below freezing. Transplant at any season; mature cuttings planted early in spring will blossom the same season. Plants may be set in gravelly or sandy soils with good drainage and watered lightly once a month during the growing season or droughty spells. Golden Prickly Pear (_Opuntia Covillei_) (Named in honor of Dr. Frederick V. Coville, curator of the National Herbarium, Washington, D. C.) How to identify and how it grows _Covillei_, or the Golden Prickly Pear, is a plant two to three feet tall and three to four feet in diameter growing with ascending or spreading branches in jointed form, which are seven to ten inches long and four to six inches across. The general color of the plant is pale blue-green. This plant often forms in thickets during growth and is covered with numerous brown spicules occurring in bundles or growing in a fringe. There are about four spines of light brown and yellow suffused with white, sharp and needlelike. The flowers are very showy and of a bright golden color, about three inches in length and width. The fruit is pear-shaped and purple. How to grow Transplant at any season, or grow from mature cuttings planted five or six inches deep early in spring—they will then blossom the same season. Water about once a month to keep the soil slightly moist. Occasionally used in Southern California as a hedge plant. Plants will endure twenty degrees of frost without injury; for colder temperatures protection is needed. Grown indoors or outside. Flapjack Prickly Pear (_Opuntia chlorotica_) (The name _chlorotica_ refers to the light green coloring of the plant) How to identify and how it grows