Cactus And Bloom I.d. Help Please

Just bumping this up!

Thanks, Dorothy. Usually flower i.d. threads get some quick responses, but maybe these are a little more obscure. I would think someone would know the cactus, though. I searched "cholla" but all they show are the bare cactus or the blooms, not the buds. Oh well, someone may stumble by eventually.....

Mary, not sure but I think the second one is Apache Plume (Fallugia paradoxa).

Thanks, Kathleen, I'll google that and see if I can find something that look like it....

Kathleen, I think you are right on the second one, although all the photos online are "fuzzier" than these were, however, this is an early spring view, so I think that's what it is.

The other one appears to be a "Cane Cholla" (Cylindropuntia sponsor). Found it in a small book I bought at the Saguaro visitor's center. The color is exact. It's hard to identify these when they have not bloomed yet. Most of the images online or in reference books are just the plant or the plant in full bloom. Very few images with just the buds.

I'll leave this open for a while in case anyone else wants to chime in.

It's tough with cacti because there are so many varieties. If the stems are narrow and cylindrical it is a variety of cholla as opposed to other species within the opuntia genus that have flattened stems.

I know, I was surprised, Kathleen, in this little book alone, there are about 5 or 6 samples of different Prickly Pear varieties. I always admire people who have all these species memorized, in fact, I've heard you discuss various plants and trees here - you kind of amaze me, but I'm botanically ignorant.

I'm trying to learn a little more because I do like to photograph plants, buds and flowers. I should be able to call them something other than "plant" or "flower" LOL...

Thanks, Mary, but I still have a lot to learn about plants even though I've been gardening since I was about 5. I used to get a kick out of my dad who liked to brag about having 3 generations of gardening women in his family - his mom, his wife and me. He loved the gardens we planted and he loved all the different flowers but he called them all petunias. Guess it was a lot easier for him to keep them straight that way.

Wish I could help, mary....but maybe just for your future photographs...take a pic of the whole cactus before you zero in on the bud...will make identifying much easier!
Send the pix to this company....their nursery has more varieties of cacti than I've ever seen....
http://www.bandbcactus.com/

Mary, I'm a member of a plant id group on Facebook that could help you if you want to join. I don't know anything about cactus.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/156706504394635/

Thanks, Marlene and Linda. Yeah, Marlene, I thought of that yesterday when I was posting "why didn't you shoot the entire plant, you dummy" LOL. Good idea.

Linda, someone else here PM'd me that group - I'll bookmark it.

Kathleen, my mom used to call them all "posies". Although she was better at flower names than I am. I've learned a few here since you guys have helped me with some of the simple ones. Unfortunately, the identification books I've bought START with the latin name and are made for serious gardeners and nursery owners. That makes it hard for the botanically challenged like me to find anything - no common names except in the index AFTER the genus and species name.

Mary, my grandma had a lot of house plants when I was really tiny and one of the first plant names I learned was Dizygotheca elegantissima because that was what it was called. It was years later before I read that it was called a Schefflera. Grandma grew up in a family that hybridized fruit trees and grew all kinds of exotic stuff that the government provided for experimental growing in their area so the botanical names were the household names. The problem with a lot of common plant names is that they're regional. I remember an in-law correcting me once when I called a lupine a lupine. She said, "Those are NOT lupines, those are bluebonnets!" Whatever, LOL.

Well, you should have come back with the formal name, Kathleen. That might have shut her up LOL

I agree that structurally, it looks like some kind of Chola, but you haven't shown much structure, and I don't recognize chola by the blossom.

Well, I did find out the hard way you should look behind you when you're backing up to focus on a cactus. A nice neighbor of the one I was shooting left a spine in my leg.....They are, indeed, very sharp.

FYI, the best way to remove those nasty things is to pour white glue on it, let it dry and pull it off.
We've been to the emergency room and in the presence of nurses on more than a few occasions...everyone does the same thing around here.
one species of Cholla is called jumping cholla since the needles are so thin they are invisible and yu can think you haven't touched it, but you'll be a victim....as if it jumped in front of your path.

Fortunately for me, Marlene, this was a very large spine so I could jut pull it out. Glad I didn't run into those tiny needles that you would need the glue for. That's a good idea, though, beats 3 hours trying to find them all with a pari of tweezers....