(Named in honor of August Fendler, who collected extensively in New Mexico and Arizona in the early days)
How to identify and how it grows
The Indian Strawberry Cactus, also, is built up of cylindrical tapered stems, in groups of ten or twelve, of uneven heights up to a foot, with a dozen or so wavy ribs and clustered radially formed spines, a half-inch or so in length, wide-spreading and lying close to the stem. The stems are a medium deep green. The radials are of a white cast toning into brown at the tips, the stout centrals dark brown and curving upwards. All the thorns have swollen bases and are more or less variable in color. The flowers are of deep purple and about three inches broad and long. There are as many as twenty petals and fourteen sepals varying from rose-pink to purple shades. The petals are spatulate and somewhat broad, the margins finely toothed. The stamens are rather short, and the anthers are yellow, while the filaments are of a light pink, toning off to green. The flowers open in the forenoon and close in the afternoon for several days in succession. The fruit is not large, no larger than a very small egg, and matures in May, when the colorings range from pink to red or yellow. When fully ripe the little spine clusters are easily rubbed off, so that it is not hard for natives to handle the fruit.
How to grow
Larger plants are not injured by zero temperatures; in colder winter weather plants require some protection or may be grown in cool, sunny glass houses. They may be transplanted at any season in gravelly or loamy soil irrigated enough to retain moisture during the growing season. Young plants grow easily from seed sown in flats or pots in sandy or loamy soil with some shade and with enough water to keep the soil moist.
Rainbow Cactus; Cabecita del Viejo (Echinocereus rigidissimus)
(Named rigidissimus from the stiff spines)
How to identify and how it grows
The rigidissimus, or Rainbow Cactus, another of the cylindrically formed cacti, is easily identified by the noticeably stiff spines, which are very numerous. The stems grow to about fifteen inches tall, four inches or less in diameter with a rounded-off top, singly, or branched above. The cylinder is composed of about twenty-four ridges well covered with very sharp radials, but with no central spines, a characteristic uncommon in the Hedgehog group. There are great numbers of radially placed spines, closely pressed to the sides of the stem. They are arranged in two comb-like groups, one on each side of the areolas, and interlock with thorns of adjacent spine clusters. This makes a dense spine layer over the entire surface of the plant. These spines are less than a half-inch long, and have swollen bases. They form in many colored zones, or whitish, yellow, rose-purple to maroon-purple bands about the plant. The flowers are about three inches long and as wide when full open, and have some forty petals and thirty sepals. The petals have pointed tips and are bright rose-purple with yellowish bases. The fruit is covered with many spines, is about the size of a strawberry, fleshy and sweet. The rigidissimus invariably grows along the rock ridges and rocky foothill slopes at altitudes of thirty-five hundred to fifty-five hundred feet, the roots growing among the rocks. Its distinguishing characteristic is the many colored bands of the spines around the plant, suggesting a rainbow.