I don't know why I dislike them. . .maybe because they represent a willful altering of something naturally beautiful to obtain something personally attractive. I'm referring to hybrid cacti grown from nursery stock that has been twizzled with the soft bristles of a paintbrush loaded with pollen from another genetic variety or species.
This creative endeavor seldom produces a fruit with viable seeds (or any fruit at all), the plants are less resistant to disease and insects, and they are less hardy in a desert or high desert environment.
I guess all this is OK so long as the "varieties" don't mix with the native chollas, barrel, prickly pear, and hedgehog varieties that thrive in the arroyos, washes, and cuts in this arid region.
Apparently they don't intermix, so-o-o no harm, no foul...but the foolishness goes on.
Silly Latin names are made up, attempts made to persuade the Department of Agriculture to recognize a "new" species, and the nurseries that propagate them continue to tell people, "That one? It's called an Amazon Giant (top left)...comes from South America."
Fortunately, at least in Arizona, a hard-to-get state permit is required to dig up or possess a native species. It ensures that native cacti in this high desert will continue to exist and remind us when they bloom that there is a wisdom lurking in the mix of spines and flowers
It's always a delight when we're on an evening walk to keep an eye out for a particular cactus species that should be blooming.
It's even more fun in the backcountry to scramble over the rocks and hills and find among the mesquite, juniper and manzanita that single cactus flower that makes a perfect picture.
. . . how plants maintain their niche in the desert environment by evolving to accept only certain pollinators and then only at particular times of the year. Bees, birds, bats and nearly everything small and mobile in the desert play a part in this ongoing drama.
The first hints come when you approach a flower and see that nearly always there is some form of life scrambling through the anthers, stamen, corolla and calyx. Fortunately, most are so intent on their occupation they don't notice that a giant w/camera has approached.
I go through this scenario frequently when taking photos for Cactus PhotoGraphics or for my website, www.cactusphotographics.com.
Flower petals and sepals are shaped to encourage and accept certain pollinators and reject others. Shape doesn't affect the spiders, for example, but it has a marked affect on whether bees, hummingbirds, bats and moths get in on the action. The Thurber gilia is a good example. Its pale lavender flowers are the wrong color to be noticed by hummingbirds and its tubes are too long for the hummingbirds to feed effectively. But this flower is an ideal food source for night fliers such as hawkmoths.
The evolutionary tricks are endless. The wild bean, for example, sports two-sided petals which serve as a convenient landing pad for bees that need to perch when they gather pollen. In contrast, the scarlet penstemon provides no such foothold and is a color that bees can't see...but alternately provides a perfect food source for hummingbirds that quickly distinguish reds and hover while feeding.
Cactus flowers, in particular, bloom when specific pollinators are seasonally abundant and active either nocturnally or during the daytime. Bats and hawkmoths aren't active during daylight hours but there are, nonetheless, cactus flowers open at night just for them. By opening for only a few hours early in the day, certain other flowers encourage bees...which have a well developed sense of time...to arrive faithfully for nectar and pollen.
Probably the "largest" of these adapters is the saguaro cactus which has flowers that stay open for only about 36 hrs. (including the night following daytime bloom) and is pollinated by birds, bees and nectar-feeding bats. Timing for these desert giants is critical. Pollination and later seed dispersal is timed for the summer rains which follow shortly thereafter.
Pollination takes place either actively or passively. While some common pollinators are actively looking for pollen, others are seeking only nectar, pollinating passively as they search for the nectar. Flowers are selective, however, about which they allow.
Bees, for example, don't have a chance in hell of reaching the nectar in some flowers because they have short or non-existent tongues. Hawkmoths and certain butterflies, in contrast, have probosces which extend a full 1 1/2 to 2 in. to reach the nectar in other flowers such as columbine, gilia, and others.
What does all this go to show?...probably nothing of significance except that when you set out to take pictures of the sex organs of plants, you meet the strangest creatures. Sex and cameras have always gone together so I'm never surprised at what I see. Often it's only in photographic "post production", as the journals call it, when cactus flowers are enlarged to two or three times life-size that I see the bees, bugs and spiders that have crept into the camera's frame.
We traveled recently to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Saguaro National Park to get cactus flower photos for our website, www.cactusphotographics.com. It was to be an early Spring (at least compared to our northern town of Jerome, AZ) when the desert wildflowers were in bloom and, hopefully, cactus flowers, as well.
Aside from the constant helicopter activity of the U.S. Border Patrol at Organ Pipe, our only minor ignorance was the discovery that cactus flowers bloom at different times and that the Hedgehog Cactus and Ocotillo flowers were the only cactus flowers out.
A helpful volunteer at Saguaro National Park explained to us that cacti such as Barrel Cactus set blossoms for the summer monsoons, blooming in August, while others such as Prickly Pear Cactus, set blooms for the winter rains and bloom in mid- to late April. Water in the soil, she explained, dissolves the seed coat and allows germination.
Fortunately, wildflowers such as the Mexican Goldpoppy had made their spectacular appearance and were joined by Brittle Bush along the roadside, valleys and slopes. We had hoped, however, for prickly pear and barrel cactus blooms at Organ Pipe but it didn't happen until we traveled to Saguaro National Park a couple of weeks later and still later to the Superstition Wilderness Area adjacent to Apache Junction.
Some results of this trip can be seen at www.cactusphotographics.com
While we humans jump on a couch, bed, or floor to reproduce, the less agile flora depend on water, and very mobile insects, specialized bees, bats, and butterflies, adapting to the environment and coordinating reproduction to the most opportune time.
