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RooCat — Red-Violet Staghorn Flower
Published: 2008-06-06 20:31:10 +0000 UTC; Views: 1540; Favourites: 27; Downloads: 0
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Description
A staghorn cactus flower of a different color! Only on rare occasions do I see cholla flowers that are in the red-purple range without either gold or green overcast to the color.Staghorn Cholla Cactus
Opuntia versicolor, Cactus Family ( Cactaceae ), Staghorn Cholla Cactus.
A tree like cactus plant about 5 to 7 feet tall with green to purple stems. Both green stemmed and purple stemmed plants can be found within a few feet of each other. The central trunk darkens with age and forms a sturdy woody structure.
Each areole on the stems contain 5 to 11 spines and brown glochids. The spines grpw to 5/8 inch in length, they are reddish to grey.
It has many Green, obvate fruit on the end of terminal branches. The seed is light tan in color 1/16 to 1/8 inch in diameter, they are irregular and rough.
Staghorn is similar to Buckhorn Cholla and both grow from about 3' - 15' tall.
The Tohono O'odham use both Staghorn and Buckhorn Cholla to make delicious cholla buds. Buckhorn is similar except buckhorn cholla has spiny dry fruits that fall off rapidly rather than lingering on the plant.
Here are the main differences between Staghorn and Buckhorn:
Staghorn tubercles are prominent visually and 3 to 5 times as long as they are wide. The spines range from about 7 to 10 per areole and are 1/4" to 5/8" long, they tend to be reddish in color and they spread out in all directions. Staghorn flowers tend to be larger than Buckhorn flowers. Staghorn mature fruit is fleshy, usually spineless or only weakly spined, and persistent for more than a year (versus dry, covered by spines, and only stay on plant for a few months in Buckhorn Cholla).
In contrast, Buckhorn spines number up to 25 per areole, tan to straw-colored, and the longer ones are up to 1 1/2" long. Buckhorn flowers are smaller than Staghorn, and their anthers are dark red. Mature fruits are dry, deeply tuberculate, and covered with numerous long spines. The fruits fall within a few months of maturity.
Height: Up To About 3' to 7' but it sometimes grows to about 15 feet.
Flowers: Red, orange, yellow, yellow-green, pink, or bronze in color. The bright flowers are about 2 1/4 inches in diameter.
Blooming Time: April - May.
Trunk: Upright, trunk-forming segmented cactus, usually single trunked to about 4 inches in diameter; the joints are sausage-shaped.
Jointed Stalks: The joints are narrow (4 - 12 inches long and about 3/4 inch thick). The spines are relatively sparse.
Fruit: Staghorn mature fruit is pale yellow, fleshy, usually spineless or only weakly spined, and persistent for more than a year.
Thorns: About 7 to 10 per areole and are 1/4" to 5/8" long, they tend to be reddish in color and they spread out in all directions..
Found: Lower Elevations of the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. southeastern California, and . Also Sonora, Mexico. On sandy desert, and gravel slopes in the deserts and grass lands.
Elevation: 100 - 3000 Feet.
Habitat: On well drained, rocky sandy desert, and gravel slopes in the desert mesas and rocky foothills. Also used as a landscape plant. Found on the Sonoran Desert of western Arizona.
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For Bear48.
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Comments: 89
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You're welcome. I like it when they are moving toward purple without the gold tint. The gold tint is nice, but not my favorite color.
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The gold tint is not mine either. I have a couple of cacti freaks interested because they were not aware that either the staghorn or the buckhorn ever came without the tint since I have both a pure red and a pure purple. So far, they are the only two plants I have found without that gold tint to them and I've been looking in the section west of me for them, too.
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I have a couple of purple ones, and in fact, I have a lot of different shades here. Next time they flower, I'll go exploring. It'll be next June, I imagine.
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Just be sure they are staghorn or buckhorn (fairly easy to identify) cholla with no trace of the gold tint. They can bloom in March-April, too, depending on the winter rains. Some other chollas do have colors without the gold tint but they are not the focus here.
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Thank you, Cita. Yes, I think it is one of the prettiest colors for a cactus flower I've seen to date.
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No, Dave, thank you for appreciating it! I'm so excited that this and my red buckhorn might be unknown variants. 
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a flower I haven't known before. thanks for this great photo and the info.
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Thank you. Isn't it, though? Now I find that both it and my red buckhorn flowers are probably sports or hybrids as Bear48's neighbor horticulturist and he (a cacti man) have never heard of them without the typical yellow, green, gold, bronze overtones being quite distinctive. Neither of these have that quality! 
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Been digging a little and I find no mention of a true red
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No, I have never heard it mentioned either. Usually, they say that they all have a bronze cast. Well, I got news for "them", not mine.
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Please nose around in your area and see what you can find out about it, too. I will check for some interested parties here.
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Oh, this is getting strange. This last guy referred me to Cacti, Other Succulents and Unusual Xerophytes of Southern Arizona by Matthew Brian Johnson which he said is really a 100 page pamphlet or to Desert Tropicals on the web. No one will admit to either having seen or not seen a true red or a purple. Almost all references say red or purple as alternate colors but show photos with that bronze (yellow or gold) cast to them. I have yet to find a photo without it. I think this is very strange.
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Welcome to my world I have done this before with species orchids. I have even talked to the man in the jungle.
The only way anyone is likely to commit is if the have one in their collection or if they really know you.
I am afraid there has been too much infighting between academics, journalist, and writers. And way to many careers destroyed.
The folks who know me and will talk to me think you have something very interesting and are trying to figure out how to go see it.
Have they bloomed before? Are they true for year to year.
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Yes, they have bloomed before but I didn't really pay much attention to them until I found out your interests in cacti although I do have photos of the both from 2007 and 2008 so they are the same. I just took photos before because I think the flowers are so pretty. It probably never occurred to me that the purple was different until I started taking note of which cacti is which for you. The red I did note because I had never seen real red before other than ocotillos and it is just south of my driveway about half way between the street and the carport. Since the purple is between two chain fruit chollas which are a hot pink-fushia color, I probably didn't think anything about the purple until I noticed that both colors are very infrequent to non-existent in the chollas. There is a section (640 acres) of land state owned directly west of me so I often wander around in it both for cacti flowers and sunset shots. This spring that drove home the fact that these two plants' flowers were different from all the rest. There is another one I must find again that is more orchid in color but has a much narower flower petal and opens much wider. I think it is on the state land but will have to wait for next spring to be sure. I have photos of it from 2007 but not 2008 so I don't know if the color is true.
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Aquestion has comeup here, did you plant them? Do you know where the stock came from? any chance they are green house hybreds?
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No, I certainly did not plant them. I don't do cacti! Well, I have transplanted a very small barrel which was heavier than shit because it was in danger from the graders by the edge of the street (the dirt thing we called a street although they have half-assed paved it now). I might even confess to transplanting a few pin cushions when they were in an area I didn't want them in. Generally, even trimming the various cacti by my driveway, I just toss the trimmed parts back into the general area. If they grow, they do, if not, oh, well. Not a prayer in hell that they are/were planted or were green house. I've seen aerials back to when or just before this house was built in 1976. A minimal space was cleared for the original mobile home which was placed here until the house was built but it was about dead center north to south but east of center of the 2 acres. The house area was cleared about 1975 north and west of center. The type of vegatation in both areas where the cacti in question are is undisturbed native stuff. Desert broom, tumbleweeds, giant, heart, slim or white bursage, and other things grow wherever you disturb the ground and the nurse ecology in both areas is what I consider normal and intact with pin cushions, hedgehogs, chollas, a bursage I haven't identified but is distinctly different from those that grow in disturbed areas, foothills paloverde and/or ironwood. The ironwood is very old from the size and shape although the foothills is younger. Still, both have the type of plants normal to undisturbed ground, not the opportunists that move into disturbed areas. I've lived in the desert almost all my life so it is relatviely easy for me to tell disturbed ground from undisturbed. Additionally, I cleared a 100' x 110' area for my arena leaving only the white thorn acacia, foothills paloverdes and saguaros so I can tell you what grows with what.
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Oh my
still looking for help answers here
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By the way, the 3rd one (the orchid colored one) is probably a Cylindropuntia spinosior (Opuntia spinosior), Walkingstick or Cane Cholla from the flowers. It is old, too, as it is at least 5-6 feet tall.
Had to take a little time out hoping Federer would finally put away Nadal. 
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I can't even say anything Nadal has done was/is offensive but he just irritates the crap out of me. Oh, well...
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I'm mostly interested in sports I do or have done but half-assed casually follow tennis and golf, sometimes bowling. I'm not at all into team sports.
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I half ass follow what going on in kayaking and bicycling
I use to follow fencing but I can not keep up any more
I know I am an odd bird
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Ah, the advantages of cable tv, I presume. I'm antenna bound so can't get the stranger sports. No cable, no comcast, no hispeed out here and I won't pay the excessive rates they want here for satellite.
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I have to go to the net, we too are antenna bound
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Fortunately, I pick up Phoenix and part of Tucson so have more channels than most but some are repeats - yeah, I have a signal amplifier and 2 antennas - one pointed in each direction. My landline net is far too slow for any broadcasts - a big roaring 24 kps, effective up and down load rate is about 2 kps.
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Oh my want to go snill racing
we have 2 station. one of them is the one I work for.
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