Some of the first inhabitants of the plant kingdom to greet the traveler approaching the desert from almost any direction are most unfriendly, fierce, and strongly armored, as if they would resist intrusion into their own special domain. These fierce cacti are small fortresses of the desert. Out there under burning-hot dry winds, where water is mighty scarce, where the soil is pulverized rock or shale or wastes of alkali sand, life at best is but little more than a fight to survive against yearly drought, seasonal storm, and blazing heat; even the bold woodpeckers, the rodents, and the sly sand foxes play their part in this silent drama Nature stages in the struggle for existence. Among the first greeters of the desert are the Cholla members of the great genus _Opuntia_, the fighters of the strange Fantastic Clan. Their flower colorings are many and variegated, mostly beautiful yellows and orange-yellows, purples, reds and browns, maroons, orange-reds and lavenders; some species possess nearly all colors of the spectrum and are veritable rainbows of tint and hue, with the desert for a dark and picturesque setting. What could be more beautiful than the desert rim with its towering peaks unrolling into low vistas of _bajadas_, receding into still lower valleys and swales, piled here and there with rocks of volcanic outcroppings, and then the great splashes of Cholla flowers with their brilliant patchwork of colorings stuck at random on their drab, gray, somber, twisted, thornlike, armored trunks? No artist has painted this glorious desert canvas in all the gorgeous tints and hues, the wonderful shadings and tones of the Great Builder’s masterpiece, save One, the Master Mind who conceived and created all. GROWTH Strange as it may seem, these fierce Cholla, called also Cane Cacti, belong to the same genus, _Opuntia_, with the Prickly Pears. These two groups form the two sections of the genus _Opuntia_, the _Cylindropuntia_ representing the Cholla, the _Platopuntia_ the Prickly Pears. One sees at a glance that the latter name applies to our platelike “flapjacks” of the desert, while the former name _Cylindropuntia_ applies to the Cholla section because the joints are cylindrical and not flattened as in their cousin _Platopuntia_. “Opuntia” is derived from the Greek town of Opus, where some plant like the cactus is said to have existed; “cholla” (pronounced chōlya, commonly choya) is of Spanish derivation and means literally “head.” The name was given because a large number of these fierce species form their branches into broad rounded heads. The designation “Cane Cacti” is also applied to the Cholla in allusion to their stems, from which cactus canes are manufactured.