LETTERS & E-MAIL

The Best Defense: a Thorny Solution

Ever wondered why desert succulents are so, well, so offensive? So spiny? So thorny? Well, it turns out that the best defense is a good offense-a strategy seen in the adaptations of water-laden succulents as protection from thirsty animals. The most easily spotted defense, spiny thorns, goes a long way in keeping water-seeking animals at bay. Animals avoid quenching their thirst on other succulents that are defended with a bitter taste or toxicity. Succulents that are neither toxic nor armed with thorns are preserved by other deterrents. Some survive because they generally grow in inaccessible locations, like rocky slopes or vertical cliffs that most animals find too challenging. The adaptation that is hardest to see is camouflage. Succulents that have grown under plants with a similar look are protected by this defense. The lead-colored slender stems of the night-blooming cereus, for example, grow inconspicuously under the dry branches of desert shrubs. So next time you amble through a quiet Sonoran Desert setting, have a little compassion for the hard-to-approach succulents that have to struggle to protect themselves in their arid environment.

Bed and Breakfast Fit for a Queen

Who says beauty and practicality have to be mutually exclusive? When Charles R. Drake, an attorney and businessman, built a home in 1878 near the old presidio in Tucson, he designed it with durable 2-foot-thick adobe walls and a central zaguan, or breezeway, that optimized airflow, and decorated it with ornately carved woodwork and colorful leaded skylights brought by wagon from San Francisco. Not coincidentally, this partMexican, part-Victorian home has weathered the years remarkably well. Of course, it didn't hurt that-when it was being subdivided into apartments in the 1940s-Louise Blenman, a member of the family that resided there from 1891 through the early 1990s, carefully secreted the woodwork, doors and trim away in the carriage house. There the items remained until 1998, when the home was restored and converted into the Royal Elizabeth Bed and Breakfast, now in Tucson's historic downtown. Information: (877)-670-9022; www.royalelizabeth.com.

Bicycle Boneyard

Relive your childhood by finding your old bicycle at Arizona's largest-and perhaps only-bicycle boneyard. All-Bikes, located along the Beeline Highway south of Payson, specializes in everything on two wheels. Owner Ron Adler, who's been in the two-wheeler parts business for 31 years, has more than 5,500 motorcycles, including a 1954 Adler manufactured the year of his birth, and even more bicycles in stock. Adler says he has about every bike "ever made," including a 19thcentury wooden bicycle and a HarleyDavidson bicycle. He also has some rare four-wheeled vehicles, including a 1957 German-made Gogomobile and a 1963 Amphicaran amphibious automobile. Adler, who ships items anywhere, recalls the day a "40ish" woman nearly burst into tears when he showed her a baby-blue Schwinn bike with butterfly decals and a "Barbie hauler" basket just like the one she had as a girl. Information: All-Bikes, State Route 87 at Rye (928) 474-2526.

THIS MONTH IN ARIZONA

1864 The temporary capital of the new Arizona Territory is established at Camp Whipple in Little Chino Valley near Prescott.

1876 La Paz suffers a smallpox epidemic, causing Colorado River steamboats to pass on by instead of stopping.

1887 A golden spike driven by Governor Zulich commemorates the completion of tracks of the Prescott and Arizona Railway. Fort Whipple troops fire a 100-gun salute.

1897 The mayor of Tucson blames "garbage and filth" accumulating on the streets as the cause for the city's diphtheria epidemic and pleads for sewers and more water.

1905 Geronimo rides in President Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade in Washington, D.C.

1954 Army headquarters announces that Fort Huachuca will be converted into a major military electronic proving ground.