I thought I would create a thread with a few of the many pictures I took of barrel cacti over the weekend.

A couple of different roads go down into Borrego Springs through steep rocky slopes. Barrel cacti and agaves tend to dominate these areas, instead of the ocotillos found lower down. Click to enlarge:







The agaves up there are A. deserti.



Also in the mix: prickly pears and chollas





Less common or easily seen: Mammillaria dioica (a species we also have here in Baja California)

Here's an old barrel that ended up at highway level, apparently after a pretty violent fall.



Interesting view of the central part of the stem



Here's the other end, with what looks like spongy tissue



The skin takes a really long time to die

Some plants on the cactus loop trail. First one has yellow spines



Two views of the one plant here, with longer, nearly hooked, pale red spines (also note the stout lateral spines)





Similar spines, more curved than hooked, with immature fruit in progress



Younger plant, with Mammillaria dioica



Other cacti at this location: prickly pears, hedgehog cacti (Echinocereus), teddy bear chollas catching the last sun of the afternoon







Old plant with ocotillo



We saw no truly red spines at this location. They are incredibly variable in color with this species, also length and degree of curve/hook.

Fallen plant.



Agave deserti with a bit of crossbanding



Young barrel with extra long spines

There's a nice little group of native cacti at the entrance to the Tamarisk Grove across the road. This barrel looks pretty thrashed.



One with thick spines that go sort of sideways



We got there after most plants had finished blooming. Fruit in progress on the plant above:



Nice little name tags. Echinocereus here:



Two fallen barrels. Not all the way dead yet:



Wrinkly prickly pears



A different day at the same location, flowers open in the sun

A lot of the area looks like this: hot, desolate desert flats surrounded by slopes with different vegetation



Some plants from the flatter parts, this next group near the visitors center













A couple of unusually large elephant plants (Bursera microphylla) near the visitor's center. A northerly species for the genus. Very similar growth habit as our Pachycormus here in BC. Also with small, deciduous, pinnate leaves and papery, peeling bark on mature stems. Also prone to extreme branching when given protection







Note far away, two agaves in bloom for double the pleasure





The really hard core plants live down here



Can't leave out the flowering ocotillos, really spectacular in person due to their size





A fair number of corpses here and there, these must take a really long time to break down



Human activity here, with a spectacular palo verde in the foreground

Baja, quite an interesting trip over there, something that is not exist in this part of the world, thanks for sharing. Is this in a park or in a wild? If in the wild, who will spend the effort to out those ID?

And for the blooming ocotillos, roughly how tall is that plant? Tx

I should have given some introduction. Anza Borrego is a California state park located near (closest major population center) San Diego. One of the largest state parks in the US. A lot of untouched wilderness. 6 inches of rainfall a year, on average, with wild fluctuations from year to year and place to place. Flash floods. Average high temperature in May is 94°F / 34°C.

People come in great numbers to see the wildflowers that bloom en masse after good winter rainfall (like this year). It's painfully hot in the summer, I think tourism drops way off then.

https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page...

All of it is in the rain shadow desert of southern California (east of the mountains, where it does not rain as much), not far from Joshua Tree National Park (famous for its Yucca brevifolia forest) and the Salton Sea (inland lake, man-made decades ago, rapidly evaporating). Further north is Death Valley, the hottest place in the US. These places are inhospitable to man yet there is a local population (town called Borrego Springs, population ~3000) with a big traffic circle, a liquor store, some restaurants, various services for the locals. Excellent, well-stocked place for a 3-day weekend getaway. We went out at the beginning or the end of the day. About half an hour in the sun in the middle of the day and you're basically done.

This region is part of the Colorado Desert (extreme southeastern California and northern Baja California, named that way because it is near the end of the Colorado River), the driest part of the Sonoran Desert (which goes into Arizona and further south into Mexico). Species represented (among others): no saguaros, no cardones or other cactus trees; Ferocactus cylindraceus (only F.); Mammillaria dioica and tetrancistra, now Cochemieas; Opuntia basilaris; Echinocereus engelmannii; Fouquieria splendens (ocotillo); various chollas (Cylindropuntia spp.); Yucca schidigera (higher westerly elevations); Agave deserti.

The plants with the ID tags were located inside a rest stop. So like a public garden with a lot of different plants in one place. Apparently taken from the wild, maybe relocated when they built the rest stop. None of them started in cultivation, as far as I could tell.

The ocotillo grows to 20-30 feet tall and 10-15 feet wide. The one pictured (about as big as most plants get in that area) was maybe 12 feet tall. More here:

Ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens)

I see, tx.

Ferocactus cylindraceus at San Matías (Baja California) with freaky red spines, these pics from 2014, for comparison







This location had only red spined plants, some quite tall. It is really dry there, like half the rainfall of Anza Borrego.

And while I'm in the database, here is one of my own seedlings a few years ago



They are slow growing (biggest is currently in an 8" pot and has not flowered after 9 years) but destined for the garden.

I wonder what the fallen ones died from (well, the cause(s) of them to fall over)? Especially the one near the highway.

Yeah, I wonder too. Old age, maybe. Gravity, assisted by erosion maybe. They all do tend to lean somewhat to the SW (thus the common name compass cactus).

Very informative.

I'd love to go down to the San Diego area and explore. I haven't been that far south in California yet.

It is kind of strange how intact the desert scene is given the millions of people a short drive away. Coastal Southern California is like an endless development, ticky tacky as far as the eye can see. The mountains and the desert are a big contrast to that.