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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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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