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The stems of these huge plants were divided into eighteen or twenty ribs, within which at intervals of an inch or so were buds, with cushions, yellow and thick, from which grew six or seven large, and many smaller spines. Most of the cactus trees were gorgeous with flowers, ranging from a deep rich crimson through rose and pink to a creamy white.
This made Jock angrier than ever, and he barked and growled and snapped, his teeth, and, had it not been for the prickly spines, would have given the porcupine a good bite. As it was, he felt nothing but contempt for it, but his contempt was short-lived.
In the West Indies it is a very common shrub, whilst at the Cape of Good Hope it is used for fences and a capital one it makes. This variety has narrower, longer leaves, which are glaucous-green above and tinged with red below; the spines on the old stems are shorter and more numerous in each cushion. This requires the same treatment as the type.
And the Dionaea, or Venus's Fly-trap of the Southern States, has some leaves which fold together upon any insect that alights upon their upper surface; and by means of a row of long spines that fringes the leaves, they prevent his escape. The more active the struggles of the captive, the closer grows the hold of the leaf, and speedily destroys him.
My author says, in his fifth chapter, that one ought to be careful to introduce such jocular sayings sparingly as a cook uses salt; and that pointed speeches should never be employed as weapons against others, but altogether in our own defence just as a hedgehog uses his spines.
On healthy large examples these spines are 2 in. long, and nearly ¼ in. wide at the base. Flowers and fruit not known. This little plant requires to be cultivated in a warm greenhouse or stove, but it grows very slowly. It is certainly a most interesting Cactus; examples of it may be seen at Kew, where there is a plant which, although over ten years old, is only 4 in. high. Syns.
Whip, whip, whip! flashed the deadly reptilian head, pecking, quicker than light flickers, at the impassive round cheval-de-frise that was the hedgehog, in a blind access of fury terrible to see; and each time the soft throat of the horror only tore and tore worse, in a ghastly manner, on those spines that showed no life and said no word, and defied all.
To render the organization of this creature perfect in relation to its wants, it is provided with three long filaments inserted along the middle of the head, which are, in fact, the detached and modified three first spines of the anterior dorsal fin.
An erect cylindrical-stemmed species, from 6 in. to 1 ft. high by 4 in. in diameter, with from ten to fourteen angles or ridges; these are somewhat tumid, and marked with depressions, from which the star-like clusters of spines spring, about a dozen spines in each cluster, the central one much the largest.
When Ted went to high school half the boys in his little clique spent their after-school hours dashing up and down Main street in their big, glittering cars, sitting slumped down on the middle of their spines in front of the steering wheel, their sleeves rolled up, their hair combed a militant pompadour. One or the other of them always took Ted along.
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