Common along banks of washes and on desert flats, this cholla, also
called “tesajo,” or “Christmas cholla,” is so slender-stemmed and
sprawling in growth habit that it is easily overlooked in a tangle of
vegetation. Its flowers, appearing in May and June, are small and
inconspicuous, but the orange to scarlet fruits about the size and shape
of olives, are striking eye-catchers in the fall and winter months. In
the open the shrubby plants are rarely more than 2 feet high, but in
thickets of northern Mexico some have become almost vinelike, growing up
through mesquite or paloverde trees to a height of 12 feet or more. The
species grows at elevations of 200 to 5,000 feet from Texas to western
Arizona and northern Mexico.
_Opuntia leptocaulis_ Cactus Family
[Illustration: PENCIL CHOLLA]