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North America, USA, Arizona, Sonoran Desert. Saguaro cactus at sunset (Carnegia gigantea). Marilyn Parver / DanitaDelimont.com “Danita Delimont Photography”/Newscom. Find it on Newscom.com: ddpphotos243028

Apparently August is cactus month. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to celebrate growing cactus, hugging cactus, or eating cactus. Outside of the one website that said it was cactus month, I haven’t actually been able to find anything else on it. But I decided I didn’t care. One website was enough reason to put together a lightbox of some of the coolest pictures available on the prickly plant. And it was also a fun excuse to think about random cactus stories.

I lived in Tempe, Arizona for nearly two years and cactus is everywhere there. People use it as front yard landscaping (which was sometimes dangerous when walking on the sidewalk – I had a skirt brush against a cholla cactus once, it was painful) and it was less than an hour drive to the Superstition Mountains where the Saguaro cactus were as thick as pine trees covering the foothills. It was beautiful. I’ve owned two cactus plants (cacti?) in my life and both came to rather brown and brittle ends. My husband says it’s because I’m less nurturing than the desert, but I still argue that there just wasn’t much sunlight coming in to our black hole of an apartment at the time.  It’s probably a mash up of the two.

Here are six facts about cactus that you may not have known (but you do need to know, one could save your life):

1. There are more than 2,000 species of cacti. I can name a few around AZ (prickly pear, cholla, barrel, saguaro), but beyond that I’m not sure how much more naming a cactus needs beyond “pointy sharp things; don’t touch.”
2. The root system of a cactus is massive. On the saguaro cactus, the roots stay very shallow and grow in length as long as the cactus is tall (they can be 40 feet tall, so that’s a lot of roots)
3. The saguaro cactus can live as long as 300 years.
4. Peyote, a hallucinogen when ingested, is actually a cactus (I really didn’t know that – and it’s a rather pretty little cactus).
5. Cacti don’t need much water. They can store water inside, expanding their spines to hold more water when they need it (if you’re ever dying of thirst in the desert, find the nearest cactus).
6. The saguaro flower is the state flower of Arizona.

There you have it. You’re a veritable cactus expert now

Go ahead and check out some of these great pictures of cactus we have in this post, then head back to Newscom to see more pictures of cacti.

Buckhorn Cholla flower (Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa), Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California USA. Russ Bishop Stock Connection Worldwide/Newscom. Find it on Newscom.com: scphotos169734

Silhouette of cactus against night sky. Dave & Les Jacobs Cultura/Newscom. Find it on Newscom.com: cuphotos054366

Detail of Cholla cactus. Steven Raniszewski / Design Pics/Newscom. Find it on Newscom.com: depmicrostock009121

Ocotillo under the Milky Way, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California USA. Russ Bishop Stock Connection Worldwide/Newscom. Find it on Newscom.com: scphotos169562

USA, Arizona, near Tucson Saguaro cactus. Walter Bibikow / DanitaDelimont.com “Danita Delimont Photography”/Newscom. Find it on Newscom.com: ddpphotos175920

Ft. McDowell, AZ, USA – Cholla cactus flowers in bloom on the Ft. McDowell Indian Reservation about 50 miles from Phoenix. ZUMA Press/Newscom. Find it on Newscom.com: zumalive815554

Giant Prickly Pear (Opuntia echios var. echios), backlit, South Plaza, Galapagos-Islands, South Pacific. Krystyna Szulecka/FLPA Image Broker/Newscom. Find it on Newscom.com: ibpremium467611

Fort Worth, Texas, USA – April 16, 2012. Fort Worth, Tx. USA. Drought tolerant plants such as this spineless prickley pear cactus tend to survive the long hot Texas summers without the need for large amounts of watering. The blooms add a beautiful yellow accent to any landscape. Ralph Lauer/ZUMA Press/Newscom. Find it on Newscom.com: zumawirewestphotossix531502

Pink blossoming flowers on a cactus in the desert. Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye/Newscom. Find it on Newscom.com: cecreative032848

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