GIANT CACTUS OR SAHUARO (Cereus giganteus)
Steadfast, pillarlike, towering fifty feet into the air, he gives a sense of power to all who behold him, some certain realization of the grandeur and mystery of God’s creations here on earth.
MEXICAN NIGHT BLOOMING CEREUS; SERPENT CACTUS; REINA DE NOCHE (Cereus serpentinus)
A weird striking growth, any one of its long sinuous tentacles, the six to fifteen entangled stems, might easily remind one of the twisted body of a serpent springing at its intended victim.
Cholla never relinquishes his right to land that he has acquired, for when he dies of old age or even before that, a host of young Cane Cacti, his children, spring up to take his place. Thus it is that the Cholla prospers and multiplies in the face of adversity, and even the hand of man cannot stay his progress.
Cholla and Prickly Pears have advanced farther north in the great cactus invasion from Mexico than any other group of cacti, and Prickly Pears have extended farther north than Cholla. Vast areas in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, and even South Dakota are grown over with Prickly Pears; some of these species have spread east to the Atlantic Ocean and northward far into Canada, and it is said of one small species that it has penetrated to within a short distance of the Arctic Circle.
From Los Angeles during the early part of June we start on yet another trek over the California-Arizona desert. Have our long travel across the great amphitheater of the sun through trackless wastes of torrid heat and blazing rays of sunlight, our parched throats and fierce thirst for cool clear springs of water, been worth our while, in the joy of new and surprising finds, in the marvelous thrills, the awe and admiration of beauty unsurpassed, in the wonderful changing kaleidoscope of the brilliant painted desert? It must be that we adjudge the majesty of the grand old mountains and deep cañon recesses, the lure of fantastic growth and wonderful flower creations, the magical charm of the desert which never stops its calling—the call that brings you back—as balancing the scales and tipping them just far enough to bring us back again for further exploration in the fantastic realm of cactus land. And so we travel along.