Crossword-Solution: CHOLLAS 7 letters, 4 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 12

Now and again the stout vamps of her hunting boots were pierced by chollas and, half frantic in her haste, she was forced to stop and struggle to pull out the thorns.

Upon that great mesa where the bronco mustangs from the Peaks still defied the impetuosity of men, the giant _sahuaros_ towered in a mighty forest as far as the eye could see, yet between each stalk there lay a wide space, studded here and there with niggerheads of bristling spines, and fuzzy _chollas_, white as the backs of sheep and thorny beyond reason.

Nor was this all: in the immensity of distance there was room for _sahuaros_ and niggerheads and _chollas_, and much besides.

With lips as tough and leathery as their indurated faces, the hardiest of them worked their way into bunches of stick-cactus and _chollas_, breaking down the guard of seemingly impenetrable spines and munching on the juicy stalks; while along the ridges long-necked cows bobbed for the high browse which the sheep had been unable to reach.

His mother's face showed that she, too, had been among the _chollas_; there was cactus in her knees and long spines bristling from her jaws, but she could stand it, while it was a matter of life and death to the calf.