I checked a small area near the road about a mile east of Pipe Springs, Arizona for the condition of Pediocactus sileri. I located about 20 plants in about 10 minutes but all the larger plants are dead. Several smaller plants, including one with a bud, were in good shape. I don't know if this is bee...

I suspect that the beetles are primarily a predator on Opuntia and Cylindropuntia. In cycles with more moisture (like now) Opuntia produce a lot of cladodes and are able to carry a lot of beetle larvae. This is likely to make predation on other genera more likely and once a beetle population gets st...

I'm not up on the recent beetle research end of this. I'll have to talk to some of my entomologist friends. I do know that many of the areas recently surveyed have been tracked for at least 40 years and extensive beetle predation only noted within the last decade. They apparently preferred Opuntia f...

In addition to unintentional habitat destruction and poaching, the dreaded cactus beetle is killing off many populations of Sclerocactus and Pediocactus in this region. Some areas that are well off the beaten track that had large colonies of Sclerocactus are now just "bone piles" with no l...

Interesting trip Peter. Thanks for all the nice photos. I wish we had made contact but it sounds like you were on a tight schedule. The spiny Opuntia around Marble Canyon is O. polyacantha var. nicholii or O. nicholii as I prefer. The Escobaria (Corypantha is retained in the lastest review)is vivipa...

The Opuntia with the reddish color looks like a very stressed out O. macrocentra to me but maybe a hybrid. The large Opuntia looks to have O. engelmannii genes in it; but it could be a hybrid with O. phaeacantha. It would be easier to ID with a flower. Seems to not be growing very upright and more l...

I agree that it looks like the hybrid "Baby Rita". I believe that it is a hybrid between O. basilaris and O. santa-rita. Makes an attractive small clumping plant with nice flowers. When it grows up it could prove me wrong and be O. macrocentra like Daiv suggests.
Dean

I love all Cylindropuntia (from a distance).
Dean

It is obvious you know how to make Opuntia happy !!
#4 and #11 are not O. aurea but may be hybrids between O. aurea x O. polyacantha or O. pinkavae.
This is not unusual as many O.aurea hybrids have been dispersed while true O. aurea is somewhat less common in culture.
Dean

"Little more than weeds here" Bite your tongue !!!
After you stare at them for a few years they are habit forming.
Dean

That is one great looking collection !!

#4 has a nice pad and flower. Everything is growing so well that it is hard to ID anything. It is certainly not O. aurea as there is no such thing as a "pink flowered" form of O. aurea. Could be a hybrid with O. aurea but I think not. Looks like a large plant; way outside the size range of...

Part of the story is that many cacti spread very, very slowly. Others, especially polyploids, may adapt and spread more rapidly. I suspect if you put a few dozen of E. grusonii in suitable habitat in Arizona you might come back in a hundred years and find that the population had spread !!!
Dean

The plant is most likely O. stricta. All the major charactistics of O.stricta are there. The number of areoles, spines, scalloped edges of pads due to raised areole margins, flower,filament and stigma lobe color all match.
Dean

I'm finding that most of the hybrid swarms and odd hybrids like this one are quite old. Climate changes have moved cactus populations around a great deal and we are left with plants like this as "markers" of where different species came together and hybridized at an earlier time.
Dean