The Flapjack Prickly Pear grows from three to six feet high from short trunks but a few inches long. The branches are erect, forming a rounded head which is quite attractive. The upper joints look very much like “flapjacks” from six to ten inches long and about as wide. The color of the plant is light yellow-green with sometimes a blue-green cast. The spicules are very conspicuous and are slender and very sharp, about one-quarter inch long, of a translucent yellow and arranged in a crescent form. The four or five spines are a little longer than the spicules, sharp, slender, and bristlelike, yellow and brown. The flowers are nearly three inches in length and width, are light lemon-yellow with orange-red centers, and blossom in May and June. How to grow This Prickly Pear grows indoors or outside and is not injured by temperatures twenty or twenty-five degrees below freezing. It can be transplanted at any season. If mature plants are transplanted early in spring they blossom the same season. Cuttings do not root readily and sometimes remain in the ground a year without growing. They should be planted early in spring in sandy or gravelly clay loam; the plants should be watered about once a month to insure good growth. Porcupine Prickly Pear (_Opuntia hystricina_) (Named from its long reddish or brownish spines) How to identify and how it grows The Porcupine Prickly Pear is formed of stems a foot or so high covered with finely grooved spines, long and slender and needlelike, up to four inches long, white and brownish red. The spicules occur in a crescent-shaped mass of light brown or yellowish colorings. The flowers are two to three inches long and as broad. They are very showy and bright purple or yellowish; they appear in April and May, while the fruit ripens in July and August. The Porcupine Prickly Pear grows at high altitudes and will endure temperatures below zero without injury. How to grow A popular beauty in gardens, it grows readily from mature cuttings planted at almost any season. If planted in early spring, they should blossom the same season. The cuttings should be dried off first to give the cut time to heal over, planted in gravelly or loamy soil with about one-half of the cutting covered, and watered once a month during the growing season. The species may be grown also from seed in flats or pots in moist soil with partial shade but with dry air. The plants are not injured by temperatures of twenty-five degrees below zero, and hence with proper soil, drainage, and limited irrigation may be grown out of doors in almost any part of the United States or of the temperate zones. CHAPTER VI MINIATURE FORTRESSES ON THE DESERT