The Spiny Tree Cholla grows to a height of fifteen feet and has a woody trunk several feet long with ascending branches forming into a broad irregular open head, and with tubercled joints three to nine inches long, which are set in spiral rows. They are gray-green suffused with yellow and purple. The straw-colored spicules are formed in bundles, while the six to fifteen spines are gray suffused with pink or brown; this produces a characteristic grayish pink coloring. These thorns are covered with thin yellowish sheaths. The flowers are very showy and appear in abundance at the tips of the joints, which are three to nine inches in length. The fruit is light yellow, broadly elliptical, tubercled and firm, with thick walls, and it remains on the plant for a year or longer. This Cholla grows in the rocky foothills and bajadas and in the sandy desert areas of the southern part of New Mexico and Arizona at fifteen hundred to five thousand feet.
How to grow
Set out young plants at any season or plant cuttings in spring in sandy or gravelly clay soil and water once a month to keep the soil slightly moist until the plants are well established. They grow very easily from cuttings. This Cholla is not injured by zero temperature and grows well outdoors or in the house; but with temperatures below zero it requires protection.
Jumping Cholla (Opuntia fulgida)
(Named fulgida from the silvery sheathed spines, which glisten in the strong desert sunlight)
How to identify and how it grows
The Jumping Cholla is a handsome dwarf tree growing as high as fifteen feet, deeply fissured, with a stout woody trunk as much as four feet long, and with candelabralike branches of blackish or brownish bark. These branches form the broadly rounded head of the tree. The joints are three to six inches long, succulent and easily broken off, and covered with tubercles in a spiral arrangement. The spicules are white and are formed in tufts, while the spines, seven to thirteen, are usually bent and less than two inches long. They are slender and needlelike with loose papery sheaths, silvery-white and glistening, giving the species its specific name. The flowers are of a bright rose-purple with yellow and pinkish tinges. The fruit is pear-shaped and green. It will be noted that both the fruit and the flowers grow out from the tips of old fruit, thus forming chains of ten to fifteen fruit. The Jumping Cholla grows well in sandy or gravelly clay soils in the low rocky foothills of southern Arizona and Northern Mexico.
How to grow
Plants can be transplanted at any season, or the joints or even fruit may be planted or laid on the surface of the ground, covered partly with soil and watered occasionally, whereupon they grow into new plants, making a few inches’ growth the first season. Plants grow best in clay or gravelly clay soil and may be given light irrigation monthly until well established. They are not injured by temperatures of twenty or twenty-five degrees below freezing, and grow indoors and out; in zero weather they require protection.