Colin Cutler; A Cacti Man's World
Illustrated Talk at Hadleigh Gardening Association, 20th October 2011
Cacti have a vast range of sizes but all share a dislike of having their “feet in water.” Colin’s talk took us from Chile where his slide of Copiapoa showed yellow flowers, absent in this ‘free to use’ picture.
Thence to New Mexico, where Echinocereus has evolved many different shapes and types of spines.
One of the smallest cacti is Mammillaria ”theresae” named for their discoverer who thought they were crocuses, Colin told us. This tiny purple bodied plant is reportedly about the size of your thumb. No wonder some of these cacti are difficult to spot in the desert – (not pictured.)
Slides (also not shown here) of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park of Southern California showed agave and yucca.
The Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix, Arizona is where to find the up to 10 meter-high saguaro (pronounced swaro, roughly.) Very rarely, one will grow with a fan-shaped crest of uncontrolled growth at the tip, described as a cristate (or crested) saguaro.
Organ Pipe Cactus (Stenocereus thurberi) is a cactus native to both Mexico and the US. The species is found in rocky desert. Here we see a night blooming flower on the side of an Organ Pipe Cactus at Organ Pipe National Monument, Arizona, USA.
If you would like to learn more, then local cacti enthusiasts meet on the 1st Friday of every month at the Civic Centre, Southend-on-Sea, at 7:30 pm
As usual, any errors in this article are mine, and not the responsibility of Hadleigh Gardening Association or the speaker.
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