CYLINDROPUNTIA RAMOSISSIMA

Botanical Name: Cylindropuntia Ramosissima

Common Names: Diamond Cholla

Alternate Botanical Names: Opuntia Ramosissima

Visual Characteristics: Mature plants generally are erect and multi branched. Trunk areas are dark, hardened, and have bark like features, as do most Cylindropuntia. Setting it apart from its relatives are terminal branches with numerous slender segments. All Cholla have raised fleshy bumps on their flesh, termed Tubercles. Further differentating, Diamond Cholla does not have raised tubracles, a trait unique among the Genus. Spectacular blooms of various colors occur in spring. White, spiny, burr like fruits follow. 

Native To 29 Palms: Yes
Native To Adjacent Regions: Yes

Occurance In Neighborhoods: Common

Occurance In Rural Areas: Common

Use by Indigenous Cultures: Native tribes consumed the buds, and also cured them for trade. Meetings of different communities would bring about exchanges of food and supplies not available without bartering.

Sentiments: Ancient tidings transcend writings, timeworn tides traverse earths biding, binding only by the blade, inside our earth the roots are laid older earthly binds and bidings.

CYLINDROPUNTIA ECHINOCARPA

Botanical Name: Cylindropuntia Echinocarpa

Common Names: Silver Cholla, Gold Cholla

Alternate Botanical Names: Opuntia Echinocarpa

Visual Characteristics: New growths of small silvery spines darken into a golden brown as they mature. Enclosed by a thin sheath which easily flakes away, spines are sharp and strong enough to penetrate tough material. Tiny invisible barbs make them challenging to remove. Silver Cholla is among the most abundant cactuses in the region, along with Cylindropuntia Ramosissima. Further away, Buckhorn Cholla holds the thriving title. Where their ranges integrate, differentiation can be daunting unless specimens are in bloom. C. Echinocarpa has vibrant green flowers, similar to the color of its segments, while Buckhorn displays shades of deep red. Identification when not flowering requires more detailed criteria such as tubracle size, number of spines per areole, segment length and branching habits. Another foe in the path of taxonomic accuracy is the tendancy for many Cholla species form natural hybrids, expressing one or more traits of its predicessors. 

Native To 29 Palms: Yes
Native To Adjacent Regions: Yes

Occurance In Neighborhoods: Common

Occurance In Rural Areas: Common

Use by Indigenous Cultures: Numerous accounts depict Cholla buds for food, and plants such as Ocotillo as living fences. Although absent from avalible literature, imagine how the vegatative propagation of Silver Cholla might have been used in the same defensive manner.

Sentiments: Spines and stems are outstretched hands, Pointy pillars fertile lands, dry and spry through wind and fly, high on why the sharp plants spy, try through sly forboding screen, glimpse the flowers gleaming green.

LARREA TRIDENTATA

Botanical Name: Larrea Tridentata

Common Names: Creosote Bush

Alternate Botanical Names: n/a

Visual Characteristics: From a tiny shrub to a 15 foot multi trunked monstrosity, it makes a case for most abundant plant throughout the Mojave Desert. Creosote Bush Scrub, the plant community in which it thrives, extends to other deserts and overlapping mountain biomes. Part of its success might be attributed to older specimens creating a ring like arrangement of new growths through vegitative reproduction. These Clonial Colonies are thought to be among the oldest living organisms of Earth, witnessing events in excess of 10,000 years past.

 Native To 29 Palms: Yes

Native To Adjacent Regions: Yes

Occurance In Neighborhoods: Common

Occurance In Rural Areas: Common

Use by Indigenous Cultures: Prepared to treat a variety of ailments, including genital disease, envenomation, disorder of the lungs, sore muscles and menstrual cramps.

Sentiments: The king of the desert with a crown of gold, resistant to sunburn resiliant to cold, as high as a mountain as low as a lake, as hard as the stones dislodged only by quake.

CYLINDROPUNTIA FULGIDA

Botanical Name: Cylindropuntia Fulgida

Common Names: Chain Fruit Cholla, Jumping Cholla

Alternate Botanical Names: Opuntia Fulgida

Visual Characteristics: Segments appear thorny with long radiating spines and prominent, plump tuberacles. They sit atop older, trunk like growths which darken, harden, and gnarl as they mature. Flowers bloom in beautiful shades of purple for one day and then wilt. The flower bud eventually swells into a fleshy fruit, out of which a new flower forms. This process is repeated and can form long chains, often in prolific quantity. This species also seems to reproduce vegitatively with more success and speed than other relatives in the area. 

Native To 29 Palms: No
Native To Adjacent Regions: Yes

Occurance In Neighborhoods: Common

Occurance In Rural Areas: Rare

Use by Indigenous Cultures: Some spiritual festivals held by native tradition involved multiple gatherers combining their harvests for a grand feast of roasted Cholla buds. Any surplus were cured and saved for less abundant times.

Sentiments: Far from home by roam be brought, land so new by few be sought, fur or hide or skin they travel, and unravel in the gravel.

CYLINDROPUNTIA FULGIDA VARIETY MAMILLATA

Botanical Name: Cylindropuntia Fulgida Variety Mamillata

Common Names: Boxing Glove Cholla

Alternate Botanical Names: Opuntia Fulgida Variety Mamillata

Visual Characteristics: Different in form than your average Cholla with curved, sometimes oddly shaped segments, some with few spines. Prolific in both its continued growth from established specimens, and its ability to reproduce vegetatively. This is a great attribute for a plant to have in the proper environment, however those same qualities make it an invasive species in some parts of the world.

Native To 29 Palms: No
Native To Adjacent Regions: Yes

Occurance In Neighborhoods: Uncommon

Occurance In Rural Areas: Rare

Use by Indigenous Cultures: Some tribes kept track of Cholla growth habits, and harvested accordingly. The sought after item was flower buds just before blooming. When eaten, the flower organs within had a pronounced taste.

Sentiments: Once a tail to two were told, in Joshua Tree during time of old, Ramosissima and she danced in unity, until fun became one and spout out a new tree.

CYLINDROPUNTIA SCORPIONIS

Botanical Name: Cylindropuntia Scorpionis
Common Names: Scorpions Cholla
Alternate Botanical Names: n/a

Visual Characteristics: Spines are long, radial, and intermittent, branching habits dense and numerous, traits reminiscent of Cylindropuntia Ramosissima. Pronounced tubercles, branching habit, and tendency for segments to droop are similar to C. Fulgida. Segment thickness, flowers, and fruits exhibit characteristics in between the two hypothesized parents.

Native To 29 Palms: Yes
Native To Adjacent Regions: Yes

Occurance In Neighborhoods: Rare

Occurance In Rural Areas: Rare

Use by Indigenous Cultures: This specific hybrid is assumed to be a newer development and might have come to life after the establishment of 29 Palms as a town. However, there is abundant information on native cultures and their use of other Cylindropuntia.

Sentiments: Transforming the casual eye into those that can differentiate a few Cholla species can take months of immersive observation, and often revision of taxonomic notions.