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Our native cactus
By adamg on Sun, 08/09/2015 - 11:46am
The other day, Craig Caplan stumbled on these cacti in the Lynn Woods. "Cacti live in the Boston area?" he asks. "Go figure."
Turns out they're not one of those summer-only invasive things, like alligators in the Charles or piranhas in one of our local lakes. Kelly pointed us to a fact sheet on native prickly pears from the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife:
Prickly Pear is currently known from Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket counties. It is native in Dukes and Nantucket counties and thought to have been introduced to Plymouth, Middlesex and Barnstable counties. Historical records from Hampden and Essex counties likely represent introduced plants. ... It has been documented at Native American archaeological sites in the eastern US, presumably because of its sweet, edible fruits. It is unknown whether Native Americans may have introduced this species to Massachusetts.
They're considered endangered, so no taking them home.
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Comments
They are in the Fells and surrounding neighborhoods
When I would walk the kids to school, we used to pass a ledge that was covered with them. When it was snake molting season, we would frequently find left behind articles of snake clothing suitable for show-n-tell.
Well it's certainly dry
Well it's certainly dry enough!
Direct link to the fact sheet
Direct link to the fact sheet at MA Div of Fisheries and Wildlife.
(Instead of having to go through the commercial, info-tracking twittering site.)
In Peabody
There's a clump of them next to a boulder in Brooksby Village, below the cliff at the southeast corner. They flourished last year; this year they aren't looking so good.
A lot of these plants
can tolerate way colder temperatures than people generally realize. Even some of the warmer West Coast cities that plant such plants everywhere get winter temperatures that drop below freezing regularly enough to kill a fragile plant, yet they manage to survive.
That said, I'm not going to recommend anyone planting their front yard with Birds of Paradise anytime soon.
They were everywhere near my aunt in AZ
They lived in a remote area of AZ (1 hour drive at highway speed to get to a supermarket to give an idea) in the foothills of a large mountain range around 5000' elevation and there were tons of prickly pear. It also got fairly cold there in the winter and it wasn't that unusual for them to get cold & snow.
Another resident in their town made homemade prickly pear cactus jelly and it is delicious.
Mahoney's
Mahoney's sells these (or a very similar species) in the spring. Took some lobes off of a plant I bought for my mom two years ago and they are thriving in my yard.