Cactus Trip through the US South West

And of course, the ever present UFO's (Unidentified F&#%ing Opuntia) Although this may be another form on the polyacantha.

Some variation can be found within the Pedicactus too. Here you can see the different spination, I have heard people refer to white or glassy spined versions, so perhaps this is what is meant ?

And another nice example..

So onward to the township of Kanab, where we'd spend the night. But not until we made a slight detour at Fredonia to check out a plant that was one of the trip highlights for me...Utahia sileri

And a youngster. Also of interest with these is what they're growing in which is gypsum mud flats. The plants were only found in this white/grey stuff and not the more common red/brown soil you can see in the back of the above photo.

As you can see in this photo, it also looks like the area is prone to heavy amounts of water and then periods of complete dryness leading to the cracking of the surface..

The next day found us heading north, looking for a plant I really didn't know too well. We ended up on the side of a road, where we all got out and started searching...

And after being on the wrong side of the hill first off, we finally found what we were looking for - Sclerocactus spinosior (or blainei if you prefer)

An impressive plant by any standard. Unfortunately the Sun wasn't doing us any favours and I think if it had of been out we would have seen open flowers. Oh well, there's always the next trip and we've already maked this one down to revisit!

And they're a good size too.

Our next target was a plant known as the Mountain Cactus, so here's a likely spot, complete with mountain...

Problem was after walking up into the "mountains" we didn't find much...turns out we had walked past the plants and they were amongst the grass in the flats..
Pediocactus simpsonii

Again, we were either too eraly or the day wasn't bright enough, so plenty of buds but no flowers...

keep it coming... this is brilliant!!!

These are great habitat photos... it's really good to see the environment the plants come from.

I have to say that the reddish sand and the general vegetation really reminds me of parts of NW Victoria.

So onwards we go !
After a few hours the next morning checking out Capitol Reef Park, we stopped at our next location...Not a whole lot to see here....or so it seems..

But amongst the gravel at the top of the ridges was a neat Sclero, Sclerocactus wrightiae!

Another nice specimen..

This area is a bit of a hot spot, as less than 30 minutes down the road was another locality, this time a Pediocactus. Always takes a while to get your eye "in"...once you find the first plant, you usually find you walked past a fair few!

Pediocactus winkleri. This one complete with seed pods....

A nice uncovered example..

And finally we found one still flowering, probably late due to it's shaded position under the bush. We heard a bit later in the trip that a number of winkleri habitats had been poached not long after we'd visited this locality. We've been trying to find out if this locality was one that was stripped, but haven't been able to confirm either way yet. I hope not, I don't know what admirer of these plants would want them knowing they've been ripped out of the ground and their original locality stripped clean...

Spectacular scenery heading from the Glen Canyon area down towards Mexican Hat...

And the "Hat" itself !

We stayed that night at a Motel right alongside the San Juan River, and just across the bridge in what was signposted as "Navajo Land" were some lovely big Sclerocactus parviflorus..