The Mama has a little tub on the patio for us to get a drink when we come back from a walk on the hot road. Sometimes Bay Bay gets in and lays down in the water to cool off. But I just like to step in and get my feet wet. Then I jump out and want to go in the house so I can get lots of wet puppy feet prints on the tile floor. Click on me to make me big.
Not exactly Australia, but out back of our RV drive on the upper part of our lot. We have lots of cholla and a couple of hedgehog cacti up in the back that we could never see unless we hike up there. Today, I went up to look at the flowers that opened up there and to get pictures of them to enjoy from down below.
On the left is one of the light pink flowers blooming on a hard-to-get-to hedgehog cactus embedded between two palo verde trees and partially obscured by some other brush. At the right is one of many open flowers on the cholla cacti up there. Click on either image to view full-sized.
I took this photo of an ocotillo flower cluster downtown yesterday just after we had lunch at our favorite Tex-Mex restaurant. This particular cluster was low enough on the ocotillo branches that I could get this nice close-up of it. Click on the image to enlarge.
We have an ocotillo at home that will soon have flowers like this. I will try and publish photos of that one when they are open.
Here are a few factoids about ocotillos from Wikipedia:
Fouquieria splendens (commonly known as ocotillo, but also referred to as coachwhip, candlewood, slimwood, desert coral, Jacob’s Staff, Jacob Cactus, and vine cactus) is a plant indigenous to the Sonoran Desert and Chihuahuan Desert in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico.
Ocotillo is not a true cactus. For much of the year, the plant appears to be an arrangement of large spiny dead sticks, although closer examination reveals that the stems are partly green. With rainfall the plant quickly becomes lush with small (less than 1 inch) ovate leaves, which may remain for weeks or even months.
Individual stems may reach a diameter of 2 inches at the base, and the plant may grow to a height of 30 feet. The plant branches very heavily at its base, but above that the branches are pole-like and only infrequently divide further, and specimens in cultivation may not exhibit any secondary branches. The leaf stalks harden into blunt spines, and new leaves sprout from the base of the spine.
The bright crimson flowers appear especially after rainfall in spring, summer, and occasionally fall. Flowers are clustered indeterminately at the tips of each mature stem. Individual flowers are mildly zygomorphic and are pollinated by hummingbirds and native carpenter bees.
Two of the Argentine Giant cactus flowers opened last evening. I took this picture of them in the morning sunlight earlier today. Click on the image to enlarge.
There ia another flower bud ready to open this evening. Here is some information about this variety of cactus from Wikipedia:
Echinopsis candicans is a species of cactus from northern Argentina. It has large fragrant white flowers that open at night.
The cactus has a shrubby growth habit, with individual stems up to 24 inches tall. The plant as a whole can be as much as 10 feet across. The stems are light green, with a diameter of up to 5.5 inches and have 9–11 low ribs. The large white areoles are spaced at 0.8–1.2 inches and produce brownish yellow spines, the central spines being up to 4 inches long, the radial spines only up to 1.6 inches. The fragrant white flowers are large, up to 7.5 inches across and 7.1–9.1 inches long.
I have lost count of how many flowers have opened on our little Bishop’s Cap barrel cactus. We have had this cactus for almost twenty years and it just keeps on making flowers all year long. This batch opened yesterday morning on the courtyard patio.
Our “old Faithful” cactus just keeps on going like the Ever Ready Bunny™. Click on the image to enlarge.
During a recent construction dig east of the house, a careless backhoe operator dumped a load of dirt on a hedgehog cactus down the road from us. Verna and I, after seeing this little disaster, decided to take the wheelbarrow and shovel to the site and dig out the damaged cactus.
All six of the lobes we dug out had cactus flower pods. We transplanted three of the lobes to the front rock garden and the other three were placed in pots pending finding a location for them.
Verna took this photo of one lobe in a pot with an open flower. Click on the image to enlarge. The three lobes in the front yard also have open flowers and we’re still waiting for the other two in pots to open.
Despite being buried in dirt, one of the lobes down the road had a flower pod above ground and it, too, had opened. These are hardy cacti, indeed.
