Of the former, O. Engelmanni is our commonest wild species. It is the one seen from the car-windows growing in great patches upon the Mojave Desert, and it is abundant upon dry hills all through the south. There are two varieties of it—var. occidentalis, Engelm., the form prevalent in the interior, and var. littoralis, Engelm., found upon the sea-coast from Santa Barbara to San Diego.
These plants have a very leathery, impermeable skin, from which evaporation takes place but slowly, which enables them to inhabit arid regions. The fruit is sweet and edible, and the Indians, who are especially fond of it, dry large quantities for winter use. They make of the fresh fruit a sauce, by long-continued boiling, which they regard as especially nutritious and stimulating after it is slightly fermented. They also roast the leaves in hot ashes and eat the slimy, sweet substance which is left after the outer skin and thorns have been removed.
Cattle-men of the southern plains plant the different species as hedges about their corrals, and feed the succulent joints to their stock after burning off the spines.
Several Mexican species were planted in the early days about the Missions by the Padres, as defensive hedges, and remnants of these redoubtable fortifications, ten to fifteen feet high, are still to be seen stretching for miles through our southern fields.
In Mexico the Opuntia tuna is largely cultivated for the rearing of cochineal insects.
VENEGASIA.
Venegasia carpesioides, DC. Composite Family.
Several feet high; leafy to the top. Leaves.—Alternate; slenderly petioled; cordate or ovate-deltoid; crenate; two to four inches long; thin. Flower-heads.—Large; two-inches across, including the rays; yellow; slender-peduncled; composed of ray- and disk-flowers. Rays.—Over an inch long; six lines wide; two- or three-toothed; fertile; about fifteen. Involucre.—Broad; of many roundish-green scales; becoming scarious inward. Hab.—Santa Barbara and southward.
This plant, with its ample thin leaves and large yellow flowers, would arrest the attention anywhere. It often grows under the shade of trees in cool cañons, where its blossoms brighten the twilight gloom. It is an admirable plant, and has but one drawback—its rather unpleasant odor. It is the only species of the genus which was named in honor of an early Jesuit missionary, Michael Venegas. It is especially abundant and beautiful about Santa Barbara.