Toward the end of this week is the monthly meeting of the Tucson Cactus and Succulent Society, and it will be my first in-person meeting.  Due to poor planning and some traffic issues, I had to Zoom last month’s meeting.  Therefore, this week I plan to leave much earlier and spend the day in Tucson.  This week’s Cactus Corner is another cholla, the chain-fruit cholla, and this one is found in the Tucson area.  It is found south of Phoenix and in various locations around southern Arizona as well.  As I mentioned in the post about the teddy-bear cholla, similar to the prickly pear, there are many different species of cholla, and a lot of them are found throughout Arizona.  By a lot, I mean many species and also that they are abundant.  I took these pictures in the Tucson area in November 2022. 

The chain-fruit cholla is Cylindropuntia fulgida.  As you can see from the pictures, it is aptly nicknamed because the fruit hang in chains below the stem.  This makes them very easy to identify.  They look like a bush or shrub or like a small tree, with cylindrical stems that branch from one or more trunks.  The stems are segmented and have prominent tubercles.  In simple terms, a tubercle is a protuberance, and the areole is at the end of the tubercle (remember that the areoles are the area from which the spines emerge).  Not all cacti have tubercles – last week’s prickly pear stem was a flat pad with the areoles spread around the flat part of the stem and along the edge with no tubercles present.  More technically, the tubercle is the leaf base and the spines are modified leaves.  Tubercles can line up to form ribs, as we saw in the saguaro, could be spiral or random.  In the case of the chain-fruit cholla, they are all around the stem but do not form ribs or spirals. 

The chain-fruit cholla produces green, spineless fruit and pink flowers.  The fruit can remain on the plant for years.  The plants will flower in the late spring and summer, but these pictures were taken in November, and there is ample fruit on each plant, so they could have been hanging there for a very long time.   I have not seen this one flower, so I will be adding it to my list for viewing this spring and summer because the flowers are usually bright pink and should photograph well.  I will be sure to share any pictures when I get them. 

This week’s talk at the cactus meeting is about growing your own cacti, so I will try to bring some tips for next week’s Cactus Corner, and I will share pictures of my little collection so far.  See you next week!