Cactus

Someone is swiping the cactuses in this upscale desert city. Over the last six months, there has been an epidemic of thefts. Officials say they have lost nearly $20,000 worth of the plants. The main target is the golden barrel, which, depending on its size, can fetch anywhere from $100 to $800 each.

THE CACTUS' ONCE-muscular green trunks have withered to a pallid brown. Some visitors think the plant is dead. But to the staff at the Huntington Botanical Gardens, this \o7Cereus xanthocarpus\f7 embodies the essence of the desert: rugged beauty and perseverance. "This is a garden of survivors," says Gary Lyons, curator of the Huntington's Desert Garden, which celebrates its 100th birthday this year.

At any other time of year, it's easy to miss the beauty of the jumbled little Christmas cactus -- such a funny-looking bit of green chaos with its flat, oval-segmented stems that go willy-nilly, this way and that. Until, that is, the buds tipping the stems pop open during the holidays. Vibrant, exotic flowers appear en masse -- just at the time of year we most need a boost of color -- and you realize this plant is, quite simply, magical.

IN a world of numbing moderation, there is, luckily, Al Richter. The Glendora homeowner believes that if a thing is worth doing, it's worth overdoing. "If I like something, I really go overboard," admits the tall, seventysomething, still-rugged retired business owner. It's not hard to figure out one of Richter's extreme tendencies as he strides over to a giant tangle of lime-green limbs rippling and swimming for the sky.

It has taken longer than they expected, but the 170 women who have pooled their savings to launch a bottling plant for nopal cactus here say it's so close they can almost taste it. The women had hoped to open the plant in summer, but a five-month siege by striking teachers in Oaxaca, the capital of the state with the same name, slowed the delivery of building materials. But with order restored, the women say the opening of the plant is just weeks away.

THANKS for the thorough and depressing story ["Nursery Stock Cut by Freeze," Jan. 25], about our recent freeze and its effects on growers. I was beating myself up for the losses in my own garden, but if professionals suffered too it makes me feel a little better. So now I will forget about my lost orchid and jacaranda trees. It's cactus, sand and sculptures for me. The searing desert summers and frigid winters are too discouraging, no matter how keen I am on a unique garden. KURT SIPOLSKI \o7Palm Desert\f7 Send letters to the Los Angeles Times, Home section, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, or e-mail home@latimes.

Hofmann obituary: The obituary of Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD, in Wednesday's California section said he was survived by his wife, Anita. She died in December. The story also referred to peyote mushrooms. Peyote is a cactus.

Cactus rustler: The Lost L.A. column on June 13 erroneously reported that the man who transported cactuses from the Texas-Mexico border to millionaire Edward L. Doheny's greenhouse in L.A. was Paul Howard. It was Edward Howard, Paul's brother.

Re "Rabbits disrupt Leisure World's calm," July 7 Get real, Seal Beach, you are a near-desert in a state with a severe water shortage. Yet you grow grass and flowers using how much water each year? What about using crushed stone and cactus flowers? Elise Asch Redondo Beach :: The presence of wildlife in urban and suburban settings should comfort us, because it proves that we as a species have not yet destroyed all of the natural world. Rabbits should not be slaughtered merely because some people are intolerant of their presence.