If you don't know what cholla cactus is, read on if you ever plan to walk or hike this desert. What Clark Moorten and I share is a love-hate relationship with all species of genus Opuntia.

This easy (but dangerous) interpretive trail through the desert is hiding in plain sight at one of Southern California's most ...

Common with all species of cactus, cholla tubular segments are covered with small, wart-like structures known as areoles. Areoles are modified branches and are the location on the cholla from ...

The Cholla Cactus Garden, located about 12 miles south of the park's North Entrance, is home to one of the few stands of cholla cactus in the park. The short, quarter-mile Cholla Cactus Garden ...

jumping cholla are some of the largest and most beautiful of cacti other than giant saguaros. “I’ve seen some that are 10 to 12 feet tall with long chains,” Wiens said. Several cactus books ...

Sort of. Because they're able to detach, root and then grow into a large cactus, often within close proximity to one another, jumping cholla often grow in "clonal colonies" according to the ...

It's pretty easy to identify the most spine-covered, pokey and self-defensive plant in all of Kern County: a cactus known as ...

As anyone who’s gotten too close to a jumping cholla cactus can attest, the experience is singularly painful — and difficult to resolve, as the cactus’ spines are particularly stubborn to remove.

Birds find the fortress of spines within the cholla plant an ideal location to build a safe nest. Shown here is a cactus wren, Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus, nest snuggled deep inside the ...