_B. glutinosa_ is a common shrub along watercourses, often forming dense thickets. The straight stems are used in native houses as matting across ceiling timbers to support the mud roof. _B. sarathroides_ and several other species are often referred to as the Desert Brooms. They are common along desert washes and roadsides in sandy soil, their pale yellow, bristly flower heads, during the fall and winter months, appearing in sharp contrast to the vivid green branchlets and dark stems of the bushes. Among some Indians, the stems are chewed as a toothache remedy.
Common Names: PLANTAIN, WOOLLY-PLANTAIN Arizona desert: (_Plantago purshi_). Buff. February-July. California desert: (_Plantago insularis_). Straw. January-May. Texas-New Mexico desert: (_Plantago argyraea_). Straw. June-August. Plantain family. Size: A few inches to 2 feet tall.
Plantains are not noted for the beauty of their blossoms but the larger, coarser species are sufficiently noticeable to attract attention, both in their blossoming and fruiting stages. The smaller winter annuals known as Indianwheat carpet the desert floor, in January and February, in some places, producing a straw-colored “pile” of tiny blossom spikes.
[Illustration: Opuntia leptocaulis Opuntia ramosissima Opuntia bigelovi]
Common Names: (_TASAJILLO_), CHRISTMAS CHOLLA, DIAMOND CACTUS, (TESAJO), DARNING-NEEDLE CACTUS, PENCIL-JOINT CHOLLA, HOLYCROSS. Arizona and Texas deserts: (_Opuntia leptocaulis_). Green-yellow. May-June. California desert: (_Opuntia ramosissima_). Green-yellow. May-September. Cactus family. Size: Much branched, shrubby, 2 to 4 feet tall.
Flowers of these small, slender-stemmed, shrubby chollas (CHOH-yahs) are small, sparse, and so inconspicuous as to be rarely noticed. However, the fruits, particularly those of _O. Leptocaulis_, are scarlet, egg-shaped, about 1 inch in length, and occur in such profusion that they immediately attract attention to the plants during the late fall and winter months, giving these plants the appropriate name of Christmas Cholla.
A large Cholla, _O. bigelovi_, also has greenish to pale yellow flowers but inconspicuous fruits and short, heavy joints so densely covered with silvery spines as to give it the name Teddybear Cholla. Found in south central and southwestern Arizona and westward into southern California, southern Nevada, and south into Sonora and Lower California, the Silver Cholla is noticeable at any season. Propagation is chiefly by joints which drop from the plant and take root, the new plants forming dense thickets on desert hillsides. Because the joints are so easily detached, they actually seem to jump at a passerby, this characteristic giving the plant the name Jumping Cactus.