Cactus Garden

Learn more and help renew and sustain the Cactus Garden

仙人掌园是一个仙人掌和多肉植物的区域集合，按生长形式和特定属分组. While walking through the garden you will be able to view dozens of species. Popular groups are Opuntias (prickly pears and chollas), Ferocactus (barrels), Agaves, Columnar cacti, Echinocereus (hedgehogs), and soon to include Mammillarias (pincushions).

Cactaceae (cactus family)

仙人掌在园丁和植物收藏家中的受欢迎程度仅次于玫瑰和兰花. Their appeal extends far beyond their native habitat; there are legions of devotees in the eastern United States, Europe, and Japan. The desire to possess these strange yet beautiful plants supports hundreds of specialty nurseries; the largest shops grow and sell millions of plants annually. Cacti are one of the reasons tourists visit the American southwest.

Most people think they know a cactus when they see one, but they are often mistaken. All cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are cacti. Agaves, ocotillos, aloes, 多肉的大戟属植物(如非洲乳树)是一种肿胀或带刺的植物，经常被误认为是仙人掌. However, 仙人掌这个词指的是一个特殊的植物家族，它有独特的花朵图案. To be a cactus, the plant must produce flowers with the following characteristics: many tepals (combined sepals and petals) that intergrade with each other; many stamens (usually hundreds), and numerous stigma lobes (rarely only three). If a plant lacks such a flower, it cannot be a cactus.

The majority of cactus species are pollinated by numerous species of bees, a number of which specialize in cacti. Cactus bees are all solitary, 但在某些物种中，成千上万的雌性聚集在筑巢地点挖掘它们自己的巢穴, which are densely concentrated in an area of a few thousand square feet. 仙人掌的花粉被塞进这些洞里喂养幼虫，而这些幼虫的父母并不照顾它们. Some cacti are pollinated by birds, moths, or bats.

Organ Pipe Cactus

The many, 通常不分枝的茎长在地面上，很容易区分管风琴仙人掌和壁虎. The stems also are thinner, and have solid woody cores. Plants are usually 9 to 11 feet (2.7-3.4 m) in height, but occasionally exceed 20 feet (6.1 m). The pinkish-white flowers, produced from April through August, open after dark and close shortly after sunrise. The spines on the fruit loosen and fall at ripeness. The juicy, sweet, red pulp contains many tiny seeds.

This tropical cactus is more frost sensitive than the saguaro, 所以它被限制在美国北部最温暖的微栖息地. 它最常见于海拔3300英尺(1000米)以下的朝南岩石斜坡上.

采蜜蝙蝠是主要的传粉者和一些主要的种子传播者. Because the flowers close at daybreak, diurnal animals are not significant pollinators as they are of saguaros. 风琴管仙人掌的果实被广泛认为是所有仙人掌中第二好吃的果实(仅次于小管仙人掌)。. Commercial harvest is feasible in some large populations, and fruits are sold in markets in Sonora and Baja California.

Senita

Senita通常长10到13英尺(3到4米)高，与风琴管仙人掌的外形相同. 它的不同之处在于茎只有5到7根肋骨(很少达到10根)，在幼茎上有很短的刺, giving them a sharply angular aspect. Mature (flower-producing) stems are quite different; they're densely covered with long, bristly, gray spines. Pink, nocturnal flowers about an inch (2.5 cm) in diameter emerge through the bristles from April through August; they emit an unpleasant odor. They are followed by marble-sized red fruits with juicy red pulp.

Senita最近被发现与一种蛾子有一种互惠关系，这种蛾子故意为花授粉，并把正在发育的果实作为幼虫的食物. The relationship is very similar to that of the yucca and its pollinating moth, 这是世界上已知的第三个与授粉相关的紧密互惠共生的例子. Senitas are very long-lived. When sites in Baja California photographed in 1905 were revisited in the 1990s, nearly every senita was still present.

Fishhook barrel

The thick, barrel-shaped body of this cactus is usually 2 to 4 feet (0.6-1.2 m) tall, occasionally reaching over 10 feet (3 m). The ribs bear broad, flat, strongly-hooked central spines as well as several bristly radial spines, but not enough of these to obscure the stem. The flowers are not strongly crowded by the spines and open wide. Flower color is extremely variable; on most plants they are some shade of orange, often with a stripe of darker shade on each petal. About 10percent of the plants have yellow or red flowers. They are produced over a 2-month-long season, August and September, much longer than the blooming period of other barrels.

Cactus bees (Lithurge spp.) pollinate the flowers. 果实会一直存在，直到被动物取出，并可能在植物上停留一年以上. 鸟类、松鼠和大型哺乳动物，如鹿和羚羊是这种水果的主要消费者. Plants grow fairly slowly, and large specimens are more than a century old. In cultivation, with supplemental water and fertilizer, 它们在大约12年的时间里达到开花直径10英寸(25厘米)，高度相同.

Engelmann prickly pear

恩格尔曼刺梨是一种灌木状仙人掌，形成高达5英尺(1英尺)的半球形丘.5 m) high and 2 or 3 times as wide. Pad size varies with individual plants; the largest are over a foot (30 cm) long. (these giants may be hybrids with other species.) The spines are also variable. The O'odham recognize this variability in applying 4 or 5 names to different forms. The flowers are yellow, about 3 inches (8 cm) in diameter, and bloom in May near the end of the spring flowering season. They last a day each, and those of some plants age to orange by afternoon. The juicy fruit ripens to varying shades (from plant to plant) of rich purple to red. The specific status of this plant is still in dispute; it has been shuttled between Opuntia phaeacantha, O. discata, and O. engelmannii by different taxonomists during the past few decades.

恩格尔曼和其他几种常见的大刺梨呈现出一个生态之谜. The juicy, palatable fruits ripen in tremendous numbers in July and August. Most saguaro fruits, produced in similar abundance earlier in the summer, are devoured the same day they ripen. But Engelmann prickly pear fruits persist for several months. Though they are eaten by a wide variety of animals including rabbits, packrats, javelina, deer, squirrels, numerous birds, desert tortoises, and cactus beetles, there are far too many fruits for them to consume. Moreover, the fruits in the centers of large plants are out of reach of several of the wildlife species that would eat them; many of these fruits are still present in November fermenting and shriveling. Why would a plant seemingly waste energy in such overproduction? Could there be a vacant niche, a missing seed-disperser? The large, very hard seeds offer another possible clue. 有人认为，一些带刺的梨与现已灭绝的巨型哺乳动物共同进化, such as mammoths and ground sloths. It's an intriguing theory and, if proven true, 进一步说明了已经确立的事实，即自然系统绝不是静态的.

Beavertail cactus

New pads of this species grow mostly from bases of older ones, resulting in sprawling plants seldom more than 2 pads tall. Clumps grow up to 6 feet (1.8 m) in diameter. The pads are spineless, but have many hair-like glochids that make the areoles look like dots of felt. 白炽的粉红色花朵从2月下旬出现在海拔最低的地方，到5月最高的地方. The dry fruits contain very large seeds, even for an opuntia.

几乎每一个与这个或其他ãspinelessä机会有过近距离接触的人都宁愿与脊椎打交道. Glochids are often too small to see, 每一次动作都会引起刺痛和强烈的瘙痒，因为倒刺会深入皮肤. 在落入这样的工厂后，清除数百或数千个是一项令人筋疲力尽和痛苦的任务. Some people shave them off at skin level, which somewhat reduces the irritation, even though this leaves the tips beneath the skin. A better remedy is to gently draw very sticky tape across the afflicted skin. Another effective treatment is to cover the area with a layer of white glue, then peel it off after it dries.

Teddy bear cholla

This distinctive cholla has a vertical trunk 3 to 5 feet (1-1.5米)高，在上足(30厘米)左右密集排列水平侧枝. Older, lower side branches die and fall off. The joints are very densely spined; very little of the living surface can be seen through its armor. The spines are especially sharp and strongly-barbed. Young spines are yellow and become black with age. 春天黄绿色的花朵之后是无刺的果实，通常不含肥沃的种子.

The detached joints will readily generate new plants by rooting and branching. 在较冷的月份里，经过的动物轻轻一碰，末端关节就会脱落, or even strong winds. 附着在动物身上的关节在被移走之前可以被移动相当远的距离. Since the fruits rarely contain viable seeds, this species reproduces almost entirely by this asexual process. Many plants have 3 sets of chromosomes instead of the ordinary 2; these are usually sterile. 在一些地方，它们形成了几乎无法穿透的林分，占据了多达2平方英里的土地，几乎把其他植物排除在外. These giant, hillside-engulfing cholla forests may be a single (clonal) plant.