In popular culture, the saguaro gets most of the cactus glory; its anthropomorphic form has made it a frequent caricature subject for cartoonists and ad men. The image of a cowboy hat-wearing saguaro with a friendly upturned arm and "howdy" caption has become an iconic, if kitschy, symbol of the Southwest. However, the billboards depicting sagua-ros extend into regions beyond where they can be reliably grown, while the saguaro s relative lack of cold hardiness limits its garden usefulness outside thewarm confines of the Sonoran desert. So let's turn the spotlight on my favorite compact ornamental columnar cactus: the underappreciated barrel cactus (Ferocactus and Echinocactus). Barrel cacti have endured a history of indignities in this country andMexico. During the 1920s and 1930s, candy makers eradicated most of the compass barrels in the natural areas of Los Angeles County. The candy makers would burn off the barrel cactus spines and slice up the pulpy body into little squares that were boiledwith sugar and sold to tourists as a novelty called Cactus Candy. In a 1940 letter to Arizona Highways, Frank Lloyd Wright warned that Arizonans must beware of the "candy-makers and cactus-hunters" out to rob the desert of its precious spiny flora. In Mexico, barrels, or biznagas, were, and sometimes still are, doused with kerosene, lit on fire to burn off their spines and fed to pigs.
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