Friday, July 29, 2011

Areoles

Taken from our Octupus cactus at El Presidio.  The areolas are clearly defined on this plant.

Ever wonder what those clusters of spines are called on a cactus?  Well wonder no more.....as the title suggests, they are called areoles.  Here is the definition...
 A small, specialized, cushionlike area on a cactus from which hairs, glochids, spines, branches, or flowers may arise. 
All I can say is....ouch!
The glochids story is coming.....a very painful lesson to be learned:(

3 comments:

  1. "Don't steal my water" says the cactus! :-))

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  2. That's a great shot! They look like tiny harmless stars from this vantage point.
    David/ Tropical Texana/ Houston

    BTW: I realy appreciated all your Astronomy posts these past weeks. I'm teaching a unit on Space Exploration and will be using your posts as part of our discussions...especially the methane discovery on Mars. Wow!

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  3. Hi David!
    I'm so glad that someone will be able to use them. Teaching Spanish has its limitations at times:) All I can say is that it was exciting to be in a room full of space people talking about some exciting stuff. Sometimes I take it for granted, but Arizona has so many wonderful scientists that work for NASA because of our telescopes located on top of our mountains. In the Tucson area alone, I can think of 3 major telescopes within an hours drive. School starts next week Friday for me. Summer went by fast!

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Thanks for stopping by!