Southern Arizona
The Slender Pincushion Cactus, typical native of the desert, is commonly so called because of the tiny slender stems an inch or less in diameter and seven or eight inches tall, growing in dense clumps of fifty to two hundred or more plants of all sizes; some growing from seed, some from offshoots of the axils near their bases. Out from the dozen or so rows of tubercles spring the white thorns with their black tips, and the central hooked spine twisted from its bulbous base; then the funnel-shaped pale purple and pink blossoms, giving a decidedly pinkish cast to this whole lovely pincushion. The bright scarlet berries, while they are odd, are pretty and also are edible. This plant was first discovered by Lieutenant Colonel Emory in 1846; it was never seen again until 1902, when it was rediscovered by one of the writers and Mr. Orcutt, along the Gila River in Arizona, from which the Gila monster is named.
Cream Pincushion Cactus (Mammillaria Johnstonii)
Southern Arizona and Northern Sonora
This gayly decorated Pincushion we see peering over solitary rocks and gladdening the hearts of the tired travelers along the desert track, with his pink and white daintiness of blossom and comb of brown and white thorns is another “Cream Cactus”; for it is said many an Indian has owed his life to the thick milk-white fluid which this unique growth yields to those who know the secret. This fat fellow looks like a huge coconut, with a green body, and stout thorns curved both upward and downward. Little bells are the flowers peeping out in a circle at the bases of the old tubercles and laughing up at us gayly as we motor slowly along the hot dusty road.
HORNED TOAD CACTUS (Mammillaria Mainæ)
SLENDER PINCUSHION CACTUS (Mammillaria fasciculata)
