Not a Christmas cactus

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My post for December 25, 2011, appropriately showed a Christmas cactus, Cylindropuntia leptocaulis. The cactus in today’s photograph, which shows the view looking straight down at the ground, has the same color scheme, but it’s a different genus and species, Escobaria missouriensis, that I photographed in the Texas Hill Country on Nan Hampton’s property outside of Lampasas on March 22. The four small red fruits were no longer attached to the cactus but were kept in place by its spines and by gravity.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman