Southern California
The first member of the dangerous Cholla clan to greet us is the California Cholla, growing in the interior arid valleys of Southern California, seeking the gravelly or rocky soils of mesa and cañon, and thriving along the lower mountain levels. It is named in honor of Dr. C. C. Parry who first collected it in 1851. The sharp stout thorns, a half-inch to an inch or so long, yellow mellowing to brown with age and covered with thin light yellow sheaths, appear in thick spreading clusters over this two- to four-foot plant, forming an impenetrable defense against animal or humankind. We also note the dense semicircular mass of light-colored spicules, a sixteenth- to an eighth-inch long, near the top of the areola. The flowers, which have long since disappeared, are generally yellow-green suffused with pink above, and the petals are nearly an inch long, golden with light red tips. The fruit becomes dry after ripening, and like many a Cholla fruit remains green upon the plant for a year or even longer.
Desert Christmas Cactus (Opuntia leptocaulis)
Southern California, Arizona, Texas, and Northern Mexico
The Desert Christmas Cactus is a flaming Cholla shrub with its mass of bright red fruit in winter a brilliant sight on the desert. The sprays of ripe fruit, sometimes used for Christmas decoration, would undoubtedly be in great demand were it not for the many fine reddish brown spicules which dry and in falling become lodged in the clothing and flesh. One of the writers has seen bushes on the desert several feet in height, as one solid mass of brilliant carmine in winter, and some of the ripe fruit stays on the plants practically all the time. A very peculiar phenomenon has been observed from time to time: a fruit or short branch will sometimes appear growing directly out of another fruit on this fantastic Opuntia leptocaulis, and thus Nature impregnates her seeming freaks of fancy in thoughtful system and design upon these strange Cactaceæ. This miniature fortress, leptocaulis, is covered with sheathed Cholla thorns which are sharp and pointed, tan with translucent yellow tips and loose whitish sheaths. The inch-long flowers are pale yellowish or greenish yellow, and these lazy blossoms have a bad habit of opening their greenish yellow eyes at three o’clock in the afternoon, then closing their petals towards evening.
Buckhorn Cholla (Opuntia acanthocarpa)
Southern California, Western and Central Arizona, Southern Utah, Northern Mexico, and Southern Nevada
Fierce and thorny cacti are Opuntia acanthocarpa, sometimes appearing on the broad desert land as dwarf trees four to six feet tall, again growing as densely spiny shrubs, impregnable fortresses defying man and beast. Over the arid sandy or gravelly soils of the southwestern desert, this fierce Cholla has fought his way and proved his right to existence, asking nothing from the hand of man and having little to give. Yet we cannot help admiring his sturdy race, their courage and their challenge, standing up to man and even laying down the law in some instances where they have spread over the ranges, elbowing in unwanted and unasked, never relinquishing to mankind their right to land they have once acquired. “Buckhorn Cholla” is surely a good name for this aggressive fellow. He has two dozen or so sharp red-brown thorns only partly sheathed, greenish yellow blossoms a couple of inches long, tipped with light red and suffused with purplish tints, extremely spiny fruit which become dry at maturity when they fall to the ground. The stems have each a woody core or cylinder from which cactus canes are made to some extent, but the species has no economic use and is regarded as worthless on the range.
DESERT CHRISTMAS CACTUS; TASAJILLO (Opuntia leptocaulis)