Friday Flower: Barrel Cactus

[ellarien]

This is the candy-striped one across the street, which has a double ring of buds inside the ring of last year's fruit. Each flower seems to last two or three days, and they open one or two at a time. Maybe it's the size and water storage capacity of these cacti that allows them to flower at the hottest, driest time of the year, but this one seems to be particularly lavish in its flowering.

Barrel Cactus UA Campus, June 2005