Money doesn’t grow on trees, they say

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They say that money doesn’t grow on trees, but in central Texas I occasionally find another green thing that does: the prickly pear cactus, Opuntia engelmannii. That was the case with this live oak, whose bole apparently held enough soil to allow the prickly pear to get a foothold, although the cactus didn’t seem to be having a great time when I photographed it on July 8th in Upper Purgatory Creek Park in San Marcos. The patches of bark on the tree strike me as rather reptilian, and I can imagine the bole being a large snake coiled around the cactus.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman