Along with columns, club updates and other material, each issue of the Henry Shaw Cactus Digest includes “Plant of the Month” articles on members’ favorite cacti and succulents. The articles typically include photos and facts on the plants’ origins, distribution and growing conditions, as well as care and cultivation tips. Plants featured in this month’s Digest are shown below. Access previous POM articles from the pulldown menus to right.
By Pat Mahon – Opuntia nemoralis has often been lumped with O. humifusa, which comprises a polyphyletic (many ancestors) clade, but differs by the monochromatic yellow flowers and smaller morphology. Today, the species is restricted to where the type specimen was found in Texas and in shale outcroppings in Hot Spring County, Arkansas. …
By Bob Williams – The agave is a great gift to mankind. It grows large and requires little care. This plant has a wide variety of uses: medical, as a food source and as a source of a hemplike fiber. “The agave, in short, was meat, drink, clothing and writing materials for the Aztec! Surely, never did Nature enclose in so compact a form so many of the elements of human comfort and civilization!” …
By Bob Williams – The genus Kedrostis is not well known. This may be due to the fact that the plants were first described in the late 1800s, and new species were being described in the 1960s. Kedrostis is a genus of 35 species of vining, caudiciform-type plants. Their native range is tropical Africa and Asia. …