§ 2I4. Opuntia Ficus-Indica, DC.-It may not be out of place to note a few things about the Opuntia Ficus-Indica, of Southern Italy and other Mediterranean countries. Its main use in the Orient appears to be first to serve as a hedge, and next to furnish food. In Cyprus I have seen it in thickets of considerable extent. When used to make a hedge, joints of the stem, which people generally call the leaves, are stuck in the earth in the fence line; often on the top of a stone wall; and sometimes merely laid on the ground. It is sure to grow; hardly anything seems to destroy its vitality. In late winter, or early spring, the stem sends out its buds, or stem-joints, which soon assume the familiar spatulate form, and are, from the start, covered with the appressed bracts or leaves. These bracts disappear soon after the new stem-joint has acquired firmness and shape, and never appear again, except when the joint so formed sends out new ones. They are replaced by spines, often, if not generally, an inch and a half long; two or three to five or six in a whorl or nodule; which make the hedge impassable to anything from cavalry to chickens. Yet not only camels but the Syrian goats feed on the green stem-joints, disregarding the spines; and I have now and then seen a donkey eating them, too.
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