The fruits will stay on the stem until winter
This photo of a desert Christmas cactus was taken while on a trip to Big Bend National Park in southwestern Texas. This was a plant that I had never seen before, but I was immediately taken aback by the beautiful red color in a desert of brown and the occasional green. The red comes from the fruit of the cactus, which can also be purple. These fruits are rounded and flattened at the end. They have a slight tapering toward the base. The fruits come from yellowish-green flowers that open in the late afternoon. The fruits will stay on the stem until winter.
The desert Christmas cactus goes by many names: tasajillo, Christmas cactus, pencil cactus, and Christmas cholla. The scientific name is Cylindropuntia leptocaulis. In the United States, these cholla are found within Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. They can also be found in the adjacent portions of Mexico. You will most likely find them in desert washes, mesas, flats, grasslands, chaparral, woodlands, and valleys.
You may see an environment that you are unfamiliar with in the previous list, chaparral. Chaparral is a type of shrubland plant community that is identified by mild wet winters and hot dry summers. These locations will often have high-intensity crown fires. Although most chaparrals are in California and Oregon, there are also chaparral systems in southern Arizona, western Texas, and in the eastern side of central Mexico's mountain chains.
The Cylindra puntia genus of cacti, which is commonly known as chollas, can be found in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. A stand or a collection of cholla, is called a cholla garden. They have barbed spines while attached to skin, fur, and clothing. They were previously a subgenus of Opuntia. They are now their own genus and can be identified by their cylindrical stems, versus the flattened stems of the Opuntia species. Another differentiator from the Opuntia is that they have papery epidermal sheaths on the spines, which the Opuntia lack.
Chaparral is a type of shrubland plant community
Did you know?
- This species of cholla cactus will grow to be 1.5 to 6 feet tall. They are most likely to grow to the larger heights when they are supported by desert trees.
- They have very narrow branches that are only 3 to 5 millimeters across. At each aerial, there are 0 to as many as 3 spines, but typically only one.
- The Apache, Chiricahua, and Mescalero people will crush the fruits and mix it with a beverage to produce narcotic effects.
0 Comments