fully open; and on the left another,
set with round greenish balls, not so open as cups. They are distinctly
different, but each seems more exquisite than the other, and their
fragrance fills the room. In fact it is so overpowering that when at
night I close the door opening into the grove, I shut the vase and its
contents outside.

This grand flower is the glory of the mesa or table-land at the foot of
this range of the Rocky Mountains--the Cheyenne Range. Where no
grass--that we name grass--will grow, where trees die for want of water,
these noble spikes of flowers dot the bare plains in profusion.

It is the rich possessor of three names. To the flower-lover it is the
yucca; to the cultivator, or whosoever meddles with its leaves, it is
the Spanish-bayonet; to the utilitarian, who values a thing only as it
is of use to him, it is the soap-weed--ignoble name, referring to
certain qualities pertaining to its roots. When we remember that this
flower is not the careful product of the garden, but of spontaneous
growth in the most barren and hopeless-looking plains, we may well
regard it as a type of Colorado's luxuriance in these loveliest of
nature's gifts.

Of a surly disposition is the blossom of a cactus--the "prickly-pear,"
as we call it in Eastern gardens, where we cultivate it for its oddity,
I suppose. When the sojourner in this land of flowers sees, opening on
all sides of this inhospitable-looking plant, rich cream-colored cups,
the size of a Jacqueminot bud, and of a rare, satiny sheen, she cannot
resist the desire to fill a low dish with them for her table.

Woe to her if she attempts to gather them "by hand"! Properly warned,
she will take a knife, sever the flower from the pear (there is no stem
to speak of), pick it up by the tip of a petal, carry it home in a paper
or handkerchief, and dump it gently into water--happy if she does not
feel a dozen intolerable prickles here and there, and have to extract,
with help of magnifying-glass and tweezers, as many needle-like barbs
rankling in her flesh. She may as well have spared herself the trouble.
The flowers possess the uncompromising nature of the stock from which
they sprung; they will speedily shut themselves up like buds again--I
almost believe they close with a snap--and obstinately refuse to display
their satin draperies to delight the eyes of their abductors. This
unlovely spirit is not common among Colorado flowers; most of them go on
blooming in