Tonight I will just share some pictures that I took early today of some prickly pear cactus blooms. OK, maybe a few words, but not many 🙂

I will start with an overview picture showing many blooms on the cactus.

Now for a closer look at one of the buds starting to open into a flower. Notice the ant crawling on the bud. The ants are pollinators for these flowers.

The blooms are really beautiful as they open with a very complex structure in the center of the flower.

If you look closely you will see quite a few ants working on these flowers.

I find the light green stigma surrounded by the white stamen very interesting. In this picture you can also see that pollen has scattered across some of the petals. The ants look like they have been busy.

I did learn today to be a bit more careful while taking pictures of cacti. I had to pull some needles out of my shirt after getting a bit close.

Hmm, now I am thinking of nopales and getting a bit hungry.

Have you ever eaten nopales?

Steven