Cactus Flowers…nature's crown jewels

Flowers are the most beautiful things God forgot to put a soul into. - ANONYMOUS Winter visitors to our Arizona desert find it hard to believe that the grotesque, bizarre and hostile cactus will bear flowers of such sweetness and brilliance.

It's hard to believe that the blunt nosed, cigar shaped, thorny character identified botanically as echinocactus, is really one of the "beautiful people" of the plant world.

We know him as the bisnaga, or barrel cactus. Early settlers knew him as "the Travellers' Friend" and "The Compass Cactus." Many are the stories in history and legend relating how the bisnaga's store of water saved many a traveler's life. Because the barrel, more than any other cactus naturally inclines its growth toward the southwest it is a foolproof compass. There is no way to determine the age of the bisnaga by its size which is governed by its supply of water. In areas of marked drought it can live for years with minimal moisture. An "old" bisnaga may be 500 years old.

In summer, the flowers of the bisnaga are borne, crown-like, in a spectacular show of vibrantly vivid hues and shades at first yellow, then bright orange, finally dark red (opposite page). Comes spring and a visit to the desert causes one to exclaim, "Where do all the brilliant flowers come from?"

No plant more typifies the miracle of perpetual resurrection. Unlike the wildflowers, dependent upon ideal climate and atmospheric conditions, the cacti bloom on a predestined schedule, not dependent upon moisture or climate. First to bloom are the wildflowers on the desert floor, setting the stage for the cactus flowers the crown jewels nature chooses to glorify her summer beauty. The general species classified as opuntia has many sub-species varying in form and flower. It's hard to believe that although the cholla are generally unapproachable by man and the domesticated animals, the plants are a fortress of safety for birds and desert animals. The Cactus Wren, Arizona's State Bird, builds her nest in the thorny branches — not one, but several nests, which she uses deceptively.

Yellow blossoms of the Purple Prickly Pear, (Opuntia santa-rita). — JOSEF MUENCH

The distinctive form of the prickly pear cactus is recognized the world over.

Platyopuntia has become the world traveler of the cactus family. The color of the prickly pear is dependent upon the mineral character of the ground where it grows — as is the parti-colored hydrangea.

It's hard to believe that despite their presence in the scattered areas of the world, all cactus, regardless of present naturalization, are native to the American deserts.

The prickly pear has naturalized itself into the permanent pattern of its locales, especially in the The Mediterranean countries. In Sicily they are prized as a chief crop of subsistence for almost six months of the year.

The Pincushion Cacti comprise the coryphanthanae sub-tribe of the cereus. The flowery-sounding botanical name means “top flowering,” a characteristic which qualifies the Pincushion as the little jewel of the Cactus Family. When in bloom the Pincushions are most conspicuous by the profusion and colors of the flowers. At other times they are quite unnoticed by the highway traveler and their acquaintance is better made afoot. Smallest of the cacti is the tiny Arizona Pincushion (coryphantha arizonica) a native of the Grand Canyon region of northern Arizona. The one-inch ball of the baby Arizona Pincushion and the fifty-foot giant Saguaro represent the extremes of the native Cereus.

Saguaro - mighty monarch of the desert. C. B. BROWN

It's hard to believe that the magnificent specimen of cereus gigantea, pictured on the opposite page, was more than a half century old when our nation was founded. It's more wonderful when one realizes that only one of one hundred thousand saguaro seeds takes root and survives drought, birds, rodents and other predators. Growth of a saguaro is very slow arms are not formed for at least 90 years. The saguaro is native to Arizona although mature plants have been successfully transplanted to other lands where they grow in botanical gardens and arboretums.

Desert reflections after a rain. BOB RIDDELL

"Many, Many Flowers"

by TED DEGRAZIA

7" x 18" oil on canvas

Purple Hedgehog (Echinocereus fendleri).

It's hard to believe that something with such a bristly appearance as the cactus on the opposite page, and a name like echinocereus, can turn into one of the desert's most glamorous beauties each spring. It's common name, the Hedgehog Cactus, more accurately describes it than cereus cacti, which also applies to several other cactus species. One of the outstanding examples is the Strawberry Hedgehog, so called because of its strawberry-color fruit. This cactus can hardly be mistaken for anything else, growing in low to medium height clumps of up to thirty stems, its shaggy, fat-cigar shaped stems densely covered with drooping needle-like spines one to five inches long. Purple or pink flowers appear in March and April, growing from the sides and near the top. A most attractive Arizona native is the Rainbow Cactus, a single-stem plant three to four inches in diameter and up to twelve inches tall. It derives its name from the effect of the alternately colored spines which lie compressed flat around the stem. Red flowers appear in May.

"The heavens declare the Glory of God."

There are such times . . . when nature and the elements work together in near-perfect harmony - the atmosphere, the clouds, the dust - to produce a masterpiece of a sunset, of which a fraction of a second's part is reproduced on the following pages. No camera can capture every changing moving hundredth of a second of what seems like all heaven and earth moving in one grand pageant of unforgettable grandeur. The impact on the senses is at once more etherial, more dazzling and more soul-stirring than any conception from a mortal artist's palette. It had to be a beautiful day for such a radiant promise of a starry night. Isn't Arizona wonderful?

There are times when the sunset, in a glorious kaleidoscope of endless enchantment, seems like the universe turned inside out. - TREVOR STANLEY

Today's concern for the natural environment has focused attention on the forests as never before. Long before most of us were aware of the word itself, the science of ecology was conceived in the forests of Arizona in 1889 by a young man named Merriam. Since then some of the most significant contributions in the field of dendrology and related sciences have emanated from scientists working in the laboratories and forests of this state, which to most of the world is best known for its vast desert areas and salubrious climate. It's hard to believe that the forests of Arizona are more extensive than those of Maine and Wisconsin. More than one-fourth of Arizona's landscapes some twenty million acres of wooded land represent priceless resources of recreation, timber, grazing lands, jobs and most precious of all in this land, water. Arizona's seven major vegetation and climate zones, ranging from near-sealevel desert to timberline at 11,500 feet, Most noted is the green-grizzled Ponderosa pine stretching along the length of the Mogollon Rim in the longest unbroken stand of any state in the union. In the lower regions the Arizona sycamore is found in the deep, moist, open fertile soils of canyon floors and mountain valleys. Never alone, it is usually with birch, willows and cottonwood trees. It is one of the largest and most valuable hardwood trees in the region. In its natural setting it dominates the ornamental pattern of any sylvan composition.