Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa

Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa Buck-horn cholla

Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Core eudicots
Order:	Caryophyllales
Family:	Cactaceae
Genus:	Cylindropuntia
Species:	C. acanthocarpa
Binomial name
*Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa* Engelm. & J.M. Bigelow
Synonyms
Opuntia acanthocarpa

Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa, commonly referred to as buck horn cholla, is a cactus native to the deserts of southern California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and Arizona in the United States.

The plant is found in the Mojave Desert and the Sonoran Deserts, including the Colorado Desert of California.

Varieties

There are a number of recognized varieties include:

Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa var. acanthocarpa ^[1]
Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa var. coloradensis — L.D. Benson; Colorado buckhorn cholla. ^[2]
Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa var. ganderi — (C.B. Wolf) L.D. Benson
Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa var. major — Engelm. & J.M. Bigelow ^[3]
Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa var. ramosa — Peebles
Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa var. thornberi — (Thornber & Bonker) L.D. Benson; Thornber's buckhorn cholla. ^[4]

Flower

During winter dryness.

Ethnobotany

Early spring was called ko’oak macat (the painful moon) by the Tohono O’odham because of scarce food supplies. During this season, they turned to cacti for food and pit-roasted thousands of calcium-rich cholla flower buds.
Today’s O’odham people still pit-roast or boil the cholla buds, which taste like asparagus tips.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa.

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, May 13, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.