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Found a weird cactus in the desert near Tucson
I was hiking in Saguaro National Park last Tuesday and spotted a cactus I'd never seen before. It was about two feet tall with these strange, twisted arms and bright pink flowers. I took a picture and spent the whole evening trying to ID it. Turns out it was a rare, native species called a Cochise pincushion cactus. I had no idea they grew in that specific area. Has anyone else come across one of these in the wild?
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emmashah2mo ago
Remember getting super lost trying to find a specific rock art panel near Sedona. Spent hours in the heat following vague directions, only to find a way cooler, totally different set of petroglyphs a mile off trail. Honestly, that's half the fun of poking around out there. You go looking for one thing and the desert just shows you something else entirely.
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ivanc452mo ago
Exactly, @emmashah, the desert's best finds are always the ones you never meant to look for.
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I mean, I get the excitement but folks are acting like they discovered a new planet. It's just a rare cactus, not the Holy Grail. You found it, you identified it, good for you. But @ivanc45, the whole "desert shows you something else" thing... it's a bit much, isn't it? Sometimes you go looking for a specific thing and you just find nothing, or a heat stroke. I've been hiking out there for 25 years and I've seen maybe two unusual plants worth mentioning. The rest is just dust and sunburn.
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