Virtual Tour

More Desert Plants

Prickly Pear Cactus While most cacti are very slow growing, a group that includes the prickly pears and cholla are just the opposite. They grow quite fast. There are several species in the area, some of them quite large. The variety shown in the picture to the left may have pads over 8 inches in diameter and may grow over 6 feet tall.

Native Americans found the plants useful as a food source. The fruit, when ripe, is delicious. The tender, green, newly emerged pads are also very tasty. They are known as "nopalitos" and can be found in many Southwestern grocery stores even today.

Besides being well armed with long, nasty spines, they also have tiny "no-see-um" spines at the base of the larger spines called glochids that can make your life miserable should you come into contact with the plant. Some plants in this group also have barbed spines that stick into your skin much like a fish hook and are very difficult to remove.

Fish Hook Barrel Cactus These large cacti are much more common in the Sonoran Desert and the eastern most extent of their range are the mountains of south-central New Mexico. They are found on the rocky, lower slopes of the mountains in the Chihuahuan Desert.

The plants can grow quite large, over 6 feet high and weigh nearly a ton. However, it takes many years for a plant to grow to this huge size. Most in this area are much smaller.

The plant is a sort of natural compass. As the plant grows it tends to lean towards the south, an effort to expose a smaller area of its body to the sun.

Many of the plants in this area disappeared early in the last century due to the "cactus candy" craze. It seems such a waste to destroy so many of these ancient, beautiful plants for the sake of a few pieces of candy.