Tree cholla

Images

Click on image to view full size

Tree cholla

Tree cholla stem segment and spines

Tree cholla flowers

Tree cholla

Tree cholla stem segments and flower buds

Tree cholla

Tree cholla

Morphology

Trunk

Dense shrubs, erect, usually much-branched. Stem segments green to grayish green, straight to curved, cylindric or clavate, .8 to 20 inches long, .6 to 1.6 inch wide, prominently tuberculate; areoles elliptic, wool yellow, tan, or gray; spines 5-30 per areole, red, tan or brown, spreading, straight or slightly curved, barbed, .3 to 1.2 inch; glochids usually numerous among larger spines.

Leaves

Leaves cylindric or narrowly conic, succulent, soon deciduous.

Flowers

Borne on new segments, rotate, 1.2 to 2 inches; outer tepals green; inner tepals red to magenta, yellow, or yellowish green; anthers yellow; style pale green proximally, pink or red distally; stigma lobes green or cream-colored.

Fruit

Yellow, cylindric-obovoid, 1 to 1.8 inch long, .8 to 1.6 inch wide, fleshy, spineless; seeds yellow or tan, nearly circular to angled, warped, 1/10 to 1/6 inch diam., smooth or lumpy.

Ecology

Habitat

Sandy to gravelly shortgrass, mixed-grass, and sandsage prairie.

Distribution

Scattered occurrence in west half of Kansas

Practical Information

Uses

Native Americans consumed the fruits raw or stewed, or dried them for winter food. A number of tribes roasted and ate the young stem segments. The spines were sometimes used as sewing needles and for tattooing.

Additional Notes

Synonyms

Alternative scientific names that have been used for this plant.