The Gay Ones

"Eriocereus Bonplandii"

This cultivated night-blooming cereus is commonly called the "Wool Cereus"

The Gay Ones "Mammillaria microcarpa"

Ordinarily, members of the cactus family and other plants of the desert would not win any prizes in a horticultural show. They have adapted themselves to the arid conditions in which they live. Through generations they have developed in form, size and shape to best withstand the years of drought, the interminable sun, the hot wind. Their mission has been to survive. With wonderful tenacity and courage, they have managed not only to survive but even to flourish under conditions that would cruelly wilt other plants, however sturdy, but unaccustomed to desert life. Desert trees and bushes and cactus plants found in the arid country are, therefore,

too busy with the mechanics of clinging to life to pay much attention to appearances. Except for one season of the year, the desert is a drab place to the stranger. It is only on better acquaintance that the stranger yields to the lure or spell of the desert, embracing the bigness and silence and distance and loneliness of strange, unfamiliar places. Desert plants, usually of a dull, gray-green color, without leaves or with dwarfed leaves, bristling with thorns and sharp points, are not pleasing to the casual eye. It is only when they are part of the desert panorama, with purple mountains as a back drop and covered with a canopy of deep blue sky, that they blend so beautifully into their surroundings.

During April, May and June, however, the desert plants respond as no other plants do to the magic of the season. The smoke tree, the palo verde, the iron wood and the mesquite clothe themselves in dress of shimmering color. The cactus plants become the gayest of the gay, and whether it is the baby pincushions or the giant saguaros the blooms they unfold in the clear, desert air are incomparable in texture and brilliance and delicacy of color. They seem to make up for their months of drabness, becoming the most dazzling of the dazzling in the Spring parade . R. C.