From Los Angeles during the early part of June we start on yet another trek over the California-Arizona desert. Have our long travel across the great amphitheater of the sun through trackless wastes of torrid heat and blazing rays of sunlight, our parched throats and fierce thirst for cool clear springs of water, been worth our while, in the joy of new and surprising finds, in the marvelous thrills, the awe and admiration of beauty unsurpassed, in the wonderful changing kaleidoscope of the brilliant painted desert? It must be that we adjudge the majesty of the grand old mountains and deep cañon recesses, the lure of fantastic growth and wonderful flower creations, the magical charm of the desert which never stops its calling—the call that brings you back—as balancing the scales and tipping them just far enough to bring us back again for further exploration in the fantastic realm of cactus land. And so we travel along. California Cholla (_Opuntia Parryi_) _Southern California_ The first member of the dangerous Cholla clan to greet us is the California Cholla, growing in the interior arid valleys of Southern California, seeking the gravelly or rocky soils of mesa and cañon, and thriving along the lower mountain levels. It is named in honor of Dr. C. C. Parry who first collected it in 1851. The sharp stout thorns, a half-inch to an inch or so long, yellow mellowing to brown with age and covered with thin light yellow sheaths, appear in thick spreading clusters over this two- to four-foot plant, forming an impenetrable defense against animal or humankind. We also note the dense semicircular mass of light-colored spicules, a sixteenth- to an eighth-inch long, near the top of the areola. The flowers, which have long since disappeared, are generally yellow-green suffused with pink above, and the petals are nearly an inch long, golden with light red tips. The fruit becomes dry after ripening, and like many a Cholla fruit remains green upon the plant for a year or even longer. Desert Christmas Cactus (_Opuntia leptocaulis_) _Southern California, Arizona, Texas, and Northern Mexico_