Cactus Flowers and other Desert Flowers

All photographs were taken by me using a Canon AE-1 Program camera usually in automatic mode. Click on the thumbnail images below to retrieve and display a larger image.

Over the years, we have driven out into the desert on "good" years to photograph flowers.  I have always been amazed at the beauty and diversity of cactus flowers.  Maybe they have to cry out louder for pollinating insects than other flowers in wetter places.

Click on any image below to see a larger image.


Picacho Peak Poppies
 
On a good year, the park at Picacho Peak between Phoenix and Tucson is filled with flowers.


More Picacho Peak Poppies.



Picacho Peak White Poppies
.
Had not encountered white poppies before.  Would seem to be a good match for a desert climate though...

Mexican Golden Barrel Cactus


Century Plants

Sending up Flower Spikes

Century Plant Flowers


Hedge-Hog Cactus Blooms


Poppies and lupin


Lupin


Prickly Pear


Saguaros, Chain-fruit Cholla, Hedge Hogs (blooming).
Superstition mountains in background

Globe Mallow


Globe Mallow?


Pincushion


Poppies in our back yard


Night blooming Cereus

These are in our yard.  They bloom at night, always after sundown, then shrivel up before noon.

Night blooming Cereus

Note bloom on left that has already shriveled.

Staghorn Cholla


Hedge hog


Staghorn Cholla


Prickly Pear


Penstemon
according to an Email I received from David Imus.  Thanks David!

Beavertail


Lupin and pincushion


Staghorn Cholla


Staghorn Cholla


Beavertail


Beavertail


Bottle brush tree


Echinocereus Rubispinus
(Fortunately this one was labeled.)

Prickly Pear


Hedge hog


Pincushion


Staghorn cholla

Green flowers?  Whoever heard of green flowers?

Chain-fruit cholla
Blooming!  I believe this is unusual. i.e.,  rare.  Only once on a "really good year" did we find a chain-fruit cholla blooming.  A "good year" has the right amount of rain at the right time in the winter...

Chain-fruit cholla
blooms!

Chain-fruit cholla
Bloom!

Pincushion



Small Cactuses



Chain Fruit Cholla
- Often called "jumping cholla".  Here is why.  The thorns look pretty harmless.  Big and fat...

But the big fat part
is actually a thin, fat sheath!  Sort of like the chaff or husk that covers a wheat grain.  If you carefully pull on the sheath,

the real thorn is exposed.
 It is SHARP.  Sharper than most needles.  If you unwittingly push or lean against the big fat harmless-looking thorns, the real thorns puncture their sheaths then puncture you.  The thorns have barbs.  They have to be removed with pliers typically. The punctures then bleed typically.  It is called jumping cholla because after you get stabbed and pull away, the part that has you breaks off of the main plant along with more of the main plant than you might expect.  The separation causes momentum that drives more thorns from the newly separated parts of the plant the into you.  These parts seem to "jump" toward you.  You are then carrying a lot of really painful cactus around with you.  If you are an animal and cannot free yourself, the stuff will eventually come loose and drop to the ground where it very well might take root and establish a new plant.  That seems to be part of its mindless strategy...
(NEW)
Late August - Fishhook Barrel Cactus
(NEW)
Late August - Fishhook Barrel Cactus
(NEW)
Late August - Fishhook Barrel Cactus
(NEW)
Why its called a "Fishhook" Barrel Cactus.  Barrel because its sort of barrel shaped.  "Fishhook" because its thorns look like fishhooks.  They curve on the end.  Click on the image to see the high-resolution image and then look at the thorns.  The fishhook shape is particularly noticable on the right side of the cactus where they are highlighted against the gravel. 

Copyright 1997-2005,  Howard C. Anderson
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