Teddybear Chollas
From personal experience, the teddybear cholla (named for the thick, bristling spines that almost look like soft fur) are a real eye-opener when one first makes physical contact with this native of the American Southwest. Casual passing contact will not only cause immense sharp pain, but the piece of the cactus touched will detach from the main part of the plant and tag along for the ride. This evolutionary and reproductive tactic is why this cholla is often called the "jumping cholla" - it will hop a ride with anything that touches it, eventually fall to the ground and once it roots, grow a whole new cactus. These were found and photographed
growing (without touching) in the open Sonoran Desert in the Picacho Peak Wilderness Area in Southern California's rural Imperial County.
- Copyright
- ©2015
- Image Size
- 4000x6000 / 23.6MB
- Keywords
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America, American Southwest, Angiosperms, C. bigelovii, Cactaceae, California, Caryophyllales, Cholla Guera, Choya Güera, Core eudicots, Cylindropuntia, Cylindropuntia bigelovii, Cylindropuntieae, Eudicots, Imperial County, Opuntia, Opuntia bigelovii, Opuntia bigelovii var. ciribe, Opuntia ciribe, Picacho, Picacho Peak, Picacho Peak Wilderness Area, Plantae, Silver Cholla, SoCal, Sonoran Desert, Teddybear Cholla, USA, United States, arid, botany, cacti, cholla, choya, desert, dicot, flora, green, heat, hurt, jumping cholla, nature, pain, painful, perennial, plant, poke, prickle, prickly, sharp, shrub, southwest, spike, spiky, spring, subshrub, succulent, teddy-bear cholla, teddybear, thorn, thorny, west, western, wild
- Contained in galleries
- Cylindropuntieae
