Here are a few blooming cacti I saw at the Tucson Botanical Gardens.
This little guy had quite the crown of flowers amongst its thorns.
It seems to be a fluke as its peers had the flowers growing randomly all over them.
This one had some large yellow blooms with a few buds yet to open. I wish I had taken down the names of all these cacti but I was rushing around trying to make sure my toddler wasn't accidentally touching the sharp thorns.
This little guy has smaller thorns and smaller yellow blooms. It also has a white fuzz on top.
Speaking of fuzz, this one has quite a bit of fuzz to guard its subtly pink buds. Nice an monochrome and the gardeners put some gray rocks next to them to fit with their theme.
I was hoping to see the Santa-Rita cacti blooming but their buds weren't quite there yet. Their bright yellow blooms compliment their purple color nicely and the blooms get large.
What in the world is this thing? It is some kind of cacti and I'm not sure if it is blooming. It reminds me of the fungi I find in Illinois.
This one doesn't appear to be blooming but it has quite a few tiny little versions of itself budding out all over the place.
The lizards are coming out of hibernation. They look a bit skinny but hopefully the blooms will attract some insects for them to eat.
That's all for now, thanks for looking :-)
Cool looking cactuses 🌵
That weird one does look more like fungi. Never seen anything like it. Very interesting.
They will get flies soon now spring started.
Great capture of the lizard.
I was hoping to see more lizards but it was still too cold at night for them to wake up. I would have to endure the summer heat to see more types of lizards which is a bit too much to endure lol.
A shame, there were not more. Yes, they wait a bit more…
Hahaha maybe you just have to ☀️☀️
I wonder of the white stuff is some kind of manna, which can be fungal or crystallised honeydew secreted by certain types of aphids, Better that you kept your toddler out of the cats, especially the large one with yellow flowers. Aptly named Ferocactus, they draw blood with ease
Maybe it was just a super infested cactus with mold. Unless someone put a fake thing in there to intrigue visitors lol. I grew up in the desert with all these types of cacti and have been pierced by a number of different ones, the cholla was the worst.
Chollas are invasive here so fortunately they aren't cultivated. One look at those makes my skin crawl
I have seen the cholla wood go for lots of money in tourist shops and on etsy, if they went to AZ they could make a fortune harvesting it and selling it. Though you would need body armor to avoid the spikes, then who knows how they could be able to rot the skin off quickly for harvest.
Dangerous place for toddlers 😂 love the pink bloom. Cacti blooming are always cool such a contrast to the spikes haha
Thankfully no blood was drawn as she hears the word sharp and gets scared. She did enjoy the butterfly house that was in the middle of the gardens where no spiky cacti were looming.
👌
Thanks :-)
I didn't know this community existed, hehe! I have an aunt who's an expert on these topics, and she has hundreds of them. I'm going to encourage her to create an account and post here! By the way, beautiful post.