40 Fun Facts About Cactus

Which giant cactus of the Sonoran Desert may not sprout its first arm until it is 75 years old?

Saguaro cacti are the largest in the United States, yet some never grow an arm at all, and the tallest one ever measured had none.

Which spiky source of tequila is often mistaken for a cactus but belongs to the asparagus family?

Agave and cacti look alike because both adapted to dry places, probably a case of convergent evolution; they are not close relatives.

On the flag of Mexico, which creature perches on a cactus while devouring a snake?

An eagle on a cactus was, in Aztec legend, the sign that showed the wandering people where to found their city.

Pitaya, the pink-skinned harvest of a climbing cactus from Mexico and Central America, is better known by which name?

Dragon fruit grows on a cactus that winds around nearby trees for support and can climb 8 to 10 meters off the ground.

Thorns are modified branches, botanists say, while cactus spines are modified versions of which plant part?

Leaves reshaped into spines lose far less water, and the spines also shade the cactus and keep hungry animals away.

To avoid losing water in the desert heat, when do most cacti open their pores to take in carbon dioxide?

At night the air is cooler, so far less water escapes; the gas is stored as an acid until daylight returns.

Which actress won an Academy Award for her first major film role, in the 1969 comedy Cactus Flower?

Goldie Hawn, until then a regular on TV's Laugh-In, won Best Supporting Actress playing opposite Walter Matthau and Ingrid Bergman.

Which brother of Snoopy lives in the desert near Needles, California, with only cacti and rocks for company?

Spike was named after a dog Charles Schulz had as a boy, and the Schulz family itself lived in Needles for two years.

Which sport holds spring training in two circuits nicknamed the Cactus League and the Grapefruit League?

Baseball named its two preseason circuits after plants typical of the states that host them; the grapefruit stands for Florida.

Which percussion instrument is traditionally a dried cactus tube with its own spines driven inward like nails?

A rainstick is filled with pebbles or dried beans that bounce off the spines as they fall, making a sound like falling rain.

The bright red or yellow top of a grafted moon cactus cannot survive alone because it lacks which pigment?

Chlorophyll is what lets a plant feed itself from sunlight, so the colorful mutant is grafted onto a green cactus that feeds it.

On which islands explored by Charles Darwin do Opuntia cacti grow as trees, some reaching 12 meters tall?

The Galápagos has cactus trees found nowhere else on Earth, and one variety carries spines up to 25 centimeters long.

The lesser long-nosed, a key pollinator of giant desert cacti that bloom after dark, is what kind of animal?

A bat of this species may migrate 1,600 kilometers a year, following the flowering of its food plants north out of Mexico each spring.

The word cactus comes, by way of Latin, from which ancient language's name for a spiny plant?

Greek kaktos was the name Theophrastus used for a spiny plant that may have been the cardoon; nobody is now sure which plant he meant.

Aloes, jade plants and almost all cacti are counted among which broad group of drought-hardy plants?

Succulents have thickened, fleshy parts adapted to store water, a trick found in many separate plant families, not just the cactus family.

Which US state adopted the white blossom of a giant desert cactus as its official state flower?

Arizona's state flower opens well after sunset and closes by the middle of the next afternoon, so each bloom lasts less than a day.

The golden ball cactus, a spiny yellow sphere from Mexico, is nicknamed the mother-in-law's what?

Cushion is one version of the joke and chair is another; though grown in gardens around the world, the plant is rare and endangered in the wild.

Christmas cactus, the holiday houseplant, grows wild on trees and rocks in which country's coastal mountains?

Brazil calls the plant Flor de Maio, the May flower, because south of the equator it blooms in May rather than December.

Which cactus with flat, paddle-shaped pads bears an edible fruit known in Spanish as tuna?

Prickly pear fruit is eaten across Mexico and the Mediterranean and is blended into the chilled drinks called aguas frescas.

To catch brief desert showers, the roots of most ground-growing cacti spread in which pattern?

Wide and shallow roots sit close to the surface, where they quickly absorb any water that reaches the ground before it is gone.

In Mexican cooking, what are the flat cactus pads called that go into salads, soups and stews?

Nopales take their name from the Nahuatl word nohpalli, and the pads of almost all Opuntia species are edible, raw or cooked.

Which video game series features the Cactuar, a dashing cactus creature feared for its 1000 Needles attack?

Final Fantasy introduced the Cactuar as an enemy in its sixth game, with a face modeled on haniwa, the clay figures of ancient Japan.

Which cactus is nicknamed jumping because its spiny segments detach at a touch and cling to passing animals?

Cholla stems that hitch a ride on desert animals are carried a short way, and young plants start from the pieces that fall off.

Which stout, ribbed desert plant is nicknamed the compass because older specimens lean toward the south?

Barrel cactus plants may lean because fierce afternoon sun slows growth on the exposed side, and old ones can tip far enough to uproot themselves.

Which small bump, the feature that identifies a plant as a cactus, sprouts both spines and flowers?

An areole is really a highly shortened branch, which is why new stems can grow from one as well as spines.

What are the tiny barbed bristles of Opuntia cacti called, which detach at a touch and lodge in the skin?

Glochids grow in tufts of hundreds and, being barbed, are far harder to get out of skin than a cactus's big spines.

Which insect, brushed from cactus pads and dried, yields the red dye carmine used in food and lipstick?

Cochineal was shipped from the New World to Spain from the 1520s; before that, Europe colored its cloth red with a dye called kermes.

Which small, spineless cactus of the Chihuahuan Desert is taken as a sacrament by the Native American Church?

Peyote takes its name from a Nahuatl word said to mean caterpillar or its cocoon, after the plant's downy top, and it can need around ten years to mature.

Which country, its farmland overrun by cacti, was rescued in the 1920s by a moth brought from Argentina?

Australia's prickly pear covered tens of millions of acres by 1920; the moth, released in 1925, almost wiped it out, and one Queensland town built the insect a monument.

Which tiny desert bird, the smallest of its kind in the world, nests in old woodpecker holes in giant cacti?

Elf owl adults are about the size of a sparrow, and pairs usually pick an abandoned north-facing hole in which to raise their young.

Which city sits between the two districts of the national park named for the Sonoran Desert's giant cactus?

Tucson lies about 10 miles from each half of the park, with one district in the mountains to its west and the other in the Rincons to its east.

In parts of Chile's Atacama Desert that see almost no rain, what gives Copiapoa cacti enough moisture to live?

Marine fog known locally as the camanchaca brings just enough moisture, and it also sustains lichens and algae where rain almost never falls.

Which country's native-born citizens are called sabras, after a cactus thorny outside and soft inside?

Israel took the nickname from the Hebrew name for the plant, and a talking cactus called Kishkashta later starred on its children's television.

Which Aztec capital was founded, legend says, on the lake island where a promised sign appeared atop a cactus?

Tenochtitlan grew as its builders used chinampa garden plots to dry and expand the island, and the site is now Mexico City.

The northernmost cactus of all, Opuntia fragilis, grows as far as the Peace River in which country?

Canada's cactus reaches about 56 degrees north in British Columbia, and the same species grows in every US state west of North Dakota and Texas.

Which Houston-born rapper founded a record label called Cactus Jack?

Travis Scott launched Cactus Jack Records in 2017, and the label's first compilation album, JackBoys, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200.

Cacti belong to the plant order Caryophyllales, which makes them distant relatives of which popular cut flower?

Carnations sit in the family that gives the order its name, and cacti are one of more than thirty other families grouped alongside it.

Which people of the Sonoran Desert harvest giant cactus fruit each June using long poles made from cactus ribs?

Tohono O'odham harvesters knock the fruit down with a pole called a kuibit, then make it into jam, syrup and ceremonial wine.

Which Pacific island did the Allies code-name Cactus, home in 1942 to the airmen of the Cactus Air Force?

Guadalcanal's airmen flew from Henderson Field from August to December 1942, the most heavily contested months of the campaign.

Which spiky plant of the Mojave Desert is a yucca and not a cactus?

Joshua tree groves grow almost only in the Mojave Desert, mostly at elevations between 400 and 1,800 meters.