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Show Cactus in Ethiopia Came From Somewhere in America American barbed wire manufacturers manufac-turers are said to be refusing orders or-ders from the belligerent powers In Africa. But something from America, Amer-ica, almost as wicked, was at the front long before Romans nnd Ethl-ops Ethl-ops began taking pot-shot3 and spear-jabs at each other. Cactus is figuring In news pictures from the Ethiopian war zone. Machine-gun nests are shown flanked or half-camouflaged half-camouflaged by huge plants of flat-jointed flat-jointed prickly pear bristling with spines menacing alike to Italian uniforms and Ethiopian chammas, not to mention the legs and arms beneath them. All true species of cactus are of American origin. The prickly plants were unknown in the Old world before be-fore the voyages of Columbus. But once cacti were Introduced from Mexico and South America they became be-came established all around the Mediterranean Med-iterranean shores in amazingly quick time, and from there they spread throughout the dry lowlands of northeast Africa and southern Asia, until now they seem normal, native parts of the landscape. |