While I was up on the hill at the back of our property last week, I found several more of the Arizona Queen of the Night cacti. This one, in particular, is very weird; the woody part of the cactus comes out of the ground at the lower left of the image and winds up and across the branches of a palo verde, then descends toward the right side of the image before splitting in two and connecting to two fleshy stems rising upward. Roll your mouse over the image to highlight the strange routing of this specimen.
Realizing that the image above is lacking in detail, I uploaded a larger highlighted image here. I also uploaded images of the other three queens I found up on the hill here and here.
Since I know that this variety of cactus has a ball root, I imagine the big one must have a whopper. I read somewhere the roots could weigh in at hundreds of pounds.
I can’t say I’ve seen one of those before. It’s really quite interesting. Thanks!
They seem to be fairly common in the desert. Damsel posted pictures of the flowers opening on another queen cactus last July.