And beneath these trees were groups of blue and purple irises, and bushes of lavender, and grey, sharp Cactuses, and the grass was thick with dandelions and daisies, and right down at the bottom was the sea.
"The Enchanted April"
Elizabeth von Arnim
Like the cliff-parrots we have already mentioned, this rock-woodpecker was a curious phenomenon, for, as their very name implies, the woodpeckers are all tree-dwelling birds, yet here was one of the genus living among rocks where not a tree was to be seen, and scarcely a plant, except the thorny Cactuses and magueys, with which succulent vegetables the woodpecker has nothing to do.
"Popular Adventure Tales"
Mayne Reid
It was here that in the days of the Kelbite dynasty, the sugar-cane and cotton-tree and mulberry supplied both East and West with produce for the banquet and the paper-mill and the silk-loom; and though these industries are now neglected, vast gardens of Cactuses still give a strangely Oriental character to the scenery of Palermo, while the land flows with honey-sweet wine instead of sugar.
"Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Vol III."
John Symonds