Since I have a large Tree Cholla stand in my front yard, I visit it during May each year when it flowers. The images here were taken in 2016 and 2017. When I am photographing these beautiful purple flowers, I often see insects and other creatures that come to feed on the nectar and pollen that they produce.

In the first image, a honey bee is approaching a blossom that is fully opened for the day’s visitors.

In the next image, you can see the bee’s behind while it prospects for nectar and pollen deep inside the flower. Did you happen to notice the lurking crab spider in each of these photographs?

In this image, two emerald metallic green Halictid bees are visiting.

In this image, you can see the abdomen of a green bee who is doing the same as the honey bee you saw earlier. Also visible in this picture is a digger bee above and to the right of the green bee. The digger bee is in the same family as the honeybee but has a different lifestyle.

In the above image, a tiny red ant is on the petal of the cholla flower.

In this last image, a copper colored blow fly has stopped by for something to eat. Since he has no mouth parts for chewing, he has to slurp nutrients from the surface he is on. Flies will deposit digestive juices on these surfaces to liquify the food so they can slurp it up their straw like mouthparts. Sort of an icky way to make a living.

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The pads produce white to gray, brownish, or reddish spines in clusters of 1 to 10 spines ranging in length from 1-3 inches. In addition, the base of each spine cluster is ringed by numerous hair spines or glochids. It is bad enough to get the longer spines stuck into your feet or hands but the hair spines are an additional insult that requires much more attention to detail to get them all removed.

Opuntia produce new pads along the edges of previous year’s pads so they appear as a cluster of pads that spread out along the ground from original plant. Prickly pear pads in contact with the grounda will form roots. Like cholla cactus, the pads of the prickly pear can form a new plant if they are removed from the parent plant by animal activity and are left in contact with the ground.

Prickly pear are named for their cylidrical fruit that are covered with hair spines or glochidia. The flowers of Opuntia generally can be seen in yellow, yellow and red, or a dull reddish pink color.

Ripe fruits are generally cherry red in color but they can be pink or pale green.

Some folks collect these and remove the glochidia before making them into jams or jellies. The young pads of Opuntia are also edible and are the nopalito seen in some grocery stores these days. All parts of the pads can have hair spines and care must be taken to remove these before consumption.

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The cactus pictured is Cylindropuntia leptocaulis, the Desert Christmas Cholla. It is one of the most widespread of the cholla cacti. They are found in western Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona and northern Mexico. When taller plants are around this species will grow beneath them and use them as a trellis to support taller growth. The cactus in these photos was growing along and using the support of a barbed wire fence, and it was beneath a tree.

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We have a section in the front yard that has a cedar elm tree surrounded by Tree Cholla cactus, Cylindropuntia imbricata. As you can see the body of the plant is made of cylindrical branches that have no regular arrangement. The cholla here has spread fill the space we grant it in the yard. The elm tree was not planted and came up amidst the cholla from seed eaten and scattered by one of our local birds. All the water last winter, and the wet spring brought this plant into flower in May of 2016.

I exercise care around the cholla because they have spines that like to embed themselves in flesh and hang on. When they do, a piece of the cholla can break off and be carried some distance from the parent plant and if it lands in fertile circumstances, more cholla! This talent of the cholla has to be considered when reducing or removing parts of the plant. Failure to keep pieces from finding new homes means More Cholla!

Our cholla patch occasionally produces the beautiful purple flowers typical of this species. It also is a barbed refuge for our local cottontail. We do not water or feed the cholla and it does what west Texas cacti do, it gets by on what’s available.

I am not sure how the cholla got its name; but on one, long ago field trip, the sound I and others made while having close encounters with the spines of this plant sounded like CHOYAH!!  And these were followed by grunts and ouches as these things were pried from our flesh. This where young folk learn respect for nature, especially cholla.

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Lace Hedgehog cactus, also known scientifically as Echinocereus reichenbachii, grow in the sandy dry limestone soils in southern, central and northwestern parts of Texas. The body of the plant is defined by its 10 to 19 vertical ribs upon which the areolae or spine clusters reside. Each areola can have 12-36 stiff spines arranged radially. Normally there are no spines, called central spines, projecting out from the surface of the areolae. Occasionally, there may be individuals who show 1 or 2 central spines on their areolae. The color of the spines, central or radial, can range from white to brown with the tips being pink, dark brown, or reddish.
The flowers of this species are dark reddish pink. The woolly nodules seen at the top of the cactus in this picture will produce flowers and become the fruit.

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