Early in the morning of a fine April day near Needles, California, on the Arizona border, we continue our journey into the desert. Before us stretches a panorama the like of which few among us have ever beheld; a picture majestic, tremendous, suggestive of the grandeur of Nature’s workshop, the vastness of those great sweeps of arid lands, covered with symmetrical, cross-patch, lacework, fantastic growths, of every size and shape and color imaginable. The Cholla are there, Giant Sahuaro rear their great trunks high into the air, and fantastic Joshua Trees lean toward us, their weird grotesque arms with long grasping fingers all pointing in one direction as if to guide the weary traveler on his way. And peering forth from among rocks, in the lee of a Giant Sahuaro or growing in a forest of the grotesque Joshua whose fantastic arms seem to engulf these tiny cacti, we find the Baby Pincushion, our Mammillaria (Coryphantha) or Cactus Mammillaria. He is a funny little ball-like plant, two or three inches in diameter, full of star-shaped spines, with an extra-long one in each star cluster and rather hooked over on the ends. These little aristocrats of the desert often cling together in groups, like a colony of sea urchins, and are very dainty when in bloom in the balmy month of April, when all the desert life is arraying itself in gay spring color and blossom.
Out on the desert mesas and along the bajadas, or mountain slopes, we find so many fantastic objects that it is hard to decide just where to start. Nature has provided many wonderful mysterious growths for her desert land of plants and flowers, and she has been careful to place them where they will be able to thrive and to evolve. Many will be found hidden away under rocks and in deep cañon recesses; others out on the foothills, where it would seem that the sun would burn them up; still others are placed boldly on the mesas where wind and rain and sandstorms play hide and seek around them. Naturally the question of growth, which is next to the most vital problem of all “Where do they get their moisture?” now presents itself. We will begin at the bottom of the ladder, to-day, and will select the Baby Pincushion, the smallest of the cactus family.
GROWTH
Several natural groups or genera go to make up the Pincushion Cacti, and of these the two most important in the great desert of the Southwest are the interesting plants of Coryphantha and Mammillaria. The name “Coryphantha” alludes to the plant’s habit of bearing the flowers at its top; Mammillaria is from mammilla, a nipple, referring to the tubercles or knobs of the plant. They are the smallest of the large and important cactus family (Cactaceæ), the Fantastic Clan, and their stems are single or in clusters and from one to twelve inches in height and diameter, often as broad as long, or broader. Often, too, the upper surface is almost flattened, while the main part of the plant is a carrot-shaped fleshy root, which Nature, the great Builder, has made a reservoir of food and water for this, her baby of the Fantastic Clan, to withstand the drying desert winds that sweep across the mesas and up the cañons, and the months of drought and fiery heat in the desert sun, when no rains come to freshen and beautify the earth and to gladden the hearts of native dwellers on the desert. The stem is studded with tubercles spirally arranged, and each crowned with an areola bearing a cluster of slender but stout spines, often hooked like the tines on a spear; and usually with hairs. This spiral arrangement gives the plant a very attractive appearance. Some species have a thick milky juice in their stems, others a colorless watery sap.
The flowers are day-blooming, both opening and closing with surprising rapidity. Mammillaria blossoms are relatively small, while those of Coryphantha are much larger, often two or three inches across; yellowish, white, pink, rose, red, or purple. There are usually many sepals, petals, and stamens, all beautifully and symmetrically arranged, and the harmony of color in the flowers is often commented upon with delight. While the flowers last at most but a few days, many of the different plants are in bloom for a considerable length of time, and some blossom two or three times a year during the spring and summer. The fruit of Pincushion Cacti are naked and smooth, rarely with a few scales in some species, and when mature red, green, yellowish, or dull purplish, and club-shaped or nearly globose. They are borne at the bases of the tubercles; in Coryphantha, at the bases of young tubercles near the top of the plant, so that they appear terminal; in Mammillaria, at the bases of old tubercles some distance from the top of the plant.
Pincushion Cacti are very popular for window gardens and miniature cactus gardens on account of their smallness, their symmetry and beauty, their fantastic shapes and designs, and their bright-colored dainty flowers. They are considered to be among the most highly developed of the cacti, inasmuch as the greatest reduction of the plant body has taken place, the plants having no leaves nor even trace of leaves. In the evolution of cacti the tendency of the different groups and species is to become leafless, and most cacti either are without leaves or have leaflets that soon disappear.
Baby cacti grow readily from seed, preferably new seed, which is Nature’s method for their reproduction. For this gallon tin cans or large flower pots, with holes in the bottom for drainage, half or two-thirds filled with gravel and sand and the remainder with light sandy soil, or wooden flats twelve by twelve inches or larger and three inches deep, filled to a depth of two and a half inches with fine light sandy soil, answer well. The soil must be free from alkali, but may contain some finely divided organic matter. Level the surface of the soil firmly to prevent water from collecting, sow the seed an eighth of an inch deep, cover carefully, set in a sunny location, and give just enough water to keep the surface moist but not wet. (Out in the open, cover the frame with glass painted white or with white cheesecloth, and raise the glass slightly to insure ventilation.) The seeds should be sown in warm weather, and they should begin growth within one to three or four weeks. After the plants have grown a half-inch or more, transplant to two-inch pots, using paper pots or the usual flower pot, and with the soil somewhat heavier but drainage good. From this time their growth is more rapid and far more interesting, and they should be kept in a sunny location and given frequent light waterings, and, later, less frequent but heavier waterings. Do not attempt to force growth by heavy watering or heavy fertilizing. Once established and having grown to a considerable size, many of the Pincushion Cacti propagate by means of offshoots from the axils of tubercles below the surface of the ground, and thus form clumps of several larger plants with numerous smaller ones about them.
Foxtail Cactus (Coryphantha deserti)
Southern California, Northwestern Arizona, and Southern Nevada
The desert is noted for its many forms of mirage, and because of the rarefied or clear atmosphere due to lack of moisture, things are not always what they seem there. In the distance ahead numberless baby foxes appear to be moving slowly toward us, their heads and bodies hidden from view, their white and reddish tails waving in the hot desert breezes. Now our guide smiles, and as we drive closer and stop he points out several clumps of short cylindric Foxtail Cacti, covered with dense masses of stiff radiating spines, white or whitish with darker tips, and stout central spines white at their bases, then black, shading into reddish brown, the whole resembling a fox’s tail and creating a striking appearance. Light pink are the dainty flowers, and when full open (only in the brightest sunlight) nearly an inch and a half wide and long, the sepals hairy and the beautiful petals narrowly lance-shaped. It is no wonder that our baby cacti are so popular for winter rock gardens with their almost perfect symmetry, and their wonderful uniformity of spines so often beautifully mottled, with exquisite patterns of color and design, brilliant, cross-patch, symmetrical, running through the individual thorns. Care should be taken that such rock gardens are arid gardens, and that the soil is not enriched, with just sufficient water to encourage a natural, compact, symmetrical growth. A heavy flooding occasionally is good. If over-watered, or fertilized too much, or if shaded, these tiny cacti make a rapid artificial growth, usually non-symmetrical in part, called “storied” or “zoned.”