Nopales For My Ancestors

Nopales for my Ancestors is a book where the poet exposes her own conflicts from childhood to adulthood. "Nopales," are the cactus leafs. Leaves have thorns .
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In most other cacti, the branches are more typically cactus-like, bare of leaves and bark, and covered with spines, as in Pachycereus pringlei or the larger opuntias. Some cacti may become tree-sized but without branches, such as larger specimens of Echinocactus platyacanthus. Cacti may also be described as shrubby , with several stems coming from the ground or from branches very low down, such as in Stenocereus thurberi. Smaller cacti may be described as columnar.

They consist of erect, cylinder-shaped stems, which may or may not branch, without a very clear division into trunk and branches. The boundary between columnar forms and tree-like or shrubby forms is difficult to define. Smaller and younger specimens of Cephalocereus senilis , for example, are columnar, whereas older and larger specimens may become tree-like.

In some cases, the "columns" may be horizontal rather than vertical. Thus, Stenocereus eruca has stems growing along the ground, rooting at intervals. Cacti whose stems are even smaller may be described as globular or globose. They consist of shorter, more ball-shaped stems than columnar cacti. Globular cacti may be solitary, such as Ferocactus latispinus , or their stems may form clusters that can create large mounds. All or some stems in a cluster may share a common root. Other cacti have a quite different appearance. In tropical regions, some grow as forest climbers and epiphytes.

Their stems are typically flattened, almost leaf-like in appearance, with fewer or even no spines. Epiphytic cacti, such as species of Rhipsalis or Schlumbergera , often hang downwards, forming dense clumps where they grow in trees high above the ground. Tall treelike habit Pachycereus pringlei. Tall unbranched columnar habit Cephalocereus.

Shorter clustered columnar habit Ferocactus pilosus. Solitary globular habit Ferocactus echidne. Epiphytic cactus Rhipsalis paradoxa. Treelike habit Pereskia aculeata. The leafless, spiny stem is the characteristic feature of the majority of cacti and all of those belonging to the largest subfamily, the Cactoideae.

The stem is typically succulent, meaning it is adapted to store water.

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The surface of the stem may be smooth as in some species of Opuntia or covered with protuberances of various kinds, which are usually called tubercles. These vary from small "bumps" to prominent, nipple-like shapes in the genus Mammillaria and outgrowths almost like leaves in Ariocarpus species. The stem may also be ribbed or fluted in shape. The prominence of these ribs depends on how much water the stem is storing: The stems of most cacti are some shade of green, often bluish or brownish green.

Such stems contain chlorophyll and are able to carry out photosynthesis; they also have stomata small structures that can open and close to allow passage of gases. Cactus stems are often visibly waxy. Areoles are structures unique to cacti. Although variable, they typically appear as woolly or hairy areas on the stems from which spines emerge.

Flowers are also produced from areoles. In the genus Pereskia , believed similar to the ancestor of all cacti, the areoles occur in the axils of leaves i. Areoles are highly specialized and very condensed shoots or branches. In a normal shoot, nodes bearing leaves or flowers would be separated by lengths of stem internodes.

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In an areole, the nodes are so close together, they form a single structure. The areole may be circular, elongated into an oval shape, or even separated into two parts; the two parts may be visibly connected in some way e. The part nearer the top of the stem then produces flowers, the other part spines. Areoles often have multicellular hairs trichomes that give the areole a hairy or woolly appearance, sometimes of a distinct color such as yellow or brown.

In most cacti, the areoles produce new spines or flowers only for a few years, and then become inactive. This results in a relatively fixed number of spines, with flowers being produced only from the ends of stems, which are still growing and forming new areoles. In Pereskia , a genus close to the ancestor of cacti, areoles remain active for much longer; this is also the case in Opuntia and Neoraimondia. The great majority of cacti have no visible leaves ; photosynthesis takes place in the stems which may be flattened and leaflike in some species.

Exceptions occur in three groups of cacti. All the species of Pereskia are superficially like normal trees or shrubs and have numerous leaves. Many cacti in the opuntia group subfamily Opuntioideae , opuntioids also have visible leaves, which may be long-lasting as in Pereskiopsis species or be produced only during the growing season and then be lost as in many species of Opuntia.

Pereskia species have "normal" leaves, with a midrib and a flattened blade lamina on either side. Opuntioids and Maihuenia have leaves that appear to consist only of a midrib. Even those cacti without visible photosynthetic leaves do usually have very small leaves, less than 0. The function of such leaves cannot be photosynthesis; a role in the production of plant hormones, such as auxin , and in defining axillary buds has been suggested.

Botanically, " spines " are distinguished from "thorns": Cacti produce spines, always from areoles as noted above. Spines are present even in those cacti with leaves, such as Pereskia , Pereskiopsis and Maihuenia , so they clearly evolved before complete leaflessness. Some cacti only have spines when young, possibly only when seedlings. This is particularly true of tree-living cacti, such as Rhipsalis or Schlumbergera , but some ground-living cacti, such as Ariocarpus , also lack spines when mature.

The spines of cacti are often useful in identification, since they vary greatly between species in number, color, size, shape and hardness, as well as in whether all the spines produced by an areole are similar or whether they are of distinct kinds. Most spines are straight or at most slightly curved, and are described as hair-like, bristle-like, needle-like or awl-like, depending on their length and thickness. Some cacti have flattened spines e. Other cacti have hooked spines. Sometimes, one or more central spines are hooked, while outer spines are straight e. In addition to normal-length spines, members of the subfamily Opuntioideae have relatively short spines, called glochids , that are barbed along their length and easily shed.

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These enter the skin and are difficult to remove, causing long-lasting irritation. Hooked central spine cf. Unusual flattened spines of Schlerocactus papyracanthus. Glochids of Opuntia microdasys. Most ground-living cacti have only fine roots , which spread out around the base of the plant for varying distances, close to the surface. Some cacti have taproots ; in genera such as Copiapoa , these are considerably larger and of a greater volume than the body. Taproots may aid in stabilizing the larger columnar cacti. Like their spines, cactus flowers are variable. Typically, the ovary is surrounded by material derived from stem or receptacle tissue, forming a structure called a pericarpel.

Tissue derived from the petals and sepals continues the pericarpel, forming a composite tube—the whole may be called a floral tube, although strictly speaking only the part furthest from the base is floral in origin. The outside of the tubular structure often has areoles that produce wool and spines. Typically, the tube also has small scale-like bracts , which gradually change into sepal-like and then petal-like structures, so the sepals and petals cannot be clearly differentiated and hence are often called " tepals ".

Gymnocalycium [16] or completely devoid of any external structures e. Cactus flowers usually have many stamens , but only a single style , which may branch at the end into more than one stigma. The stamens usually arise from all over the inner surface of the upper part of the floral tube, although in some cacti, the stamens are produced in one or more distinct "series" in more specific areas of the inside of the floral tube. The flower as a whole is usually radially symmetrical actinomorphic , but may be bilaterally symmetrical zygomorphic in some species.

Flower colors range from white through yellow and red to magenta. All cacti have some adaptations to promote efficient water use. Most cacti—opuntias and cactoids—specialize in surviving in hot and dry environments i. The absence of visible leaves is one of the most striking features of most cacti. Pereskia which is close to the ancestral species from which all cacti evolved does have long-lasting leaves, which are, however, thickened and succulent in many species.

Water loss is proportional to surface area, whereas the amount of water present is proportional to volume. Structures with a high surface area-to-volume ratio, such as thin leaves, necessarily lose water at a higher rate than structures with a low area-to-volume ratio, such as thickened stems. Spines , which are modified leaves, are present on even those cacti with true leaves, showing the evolution of spines preceded the loss of leaves.

Although spines have a high surface area-to-volume ratio, at maturity they contain little or no water, being composed of fibers made up of dead cells. They trap air near the surface of the cactus, creating a moister layer that reduces evaporation and transpiration. They can provide some shade, which lowers the temperature of the surface of the cactus, also reducing water loss. When sufficiently moist air is present, such as during fog or early morning mist, spines can condense moisture, which then drips onto the ground and is absorbed by the roots. The majority of cacti are stem succulents , i.

Stem shapes vary considerably among cacti. The cylindrical shape of columnar cacti and the spherical shape of globular cacti produce a low surface area-to-volume ratio, thus reducing water loss, as well as minimizing the heating effects of sunlight. The ribbed or fluted stems of many cacti allow the stem to shrink during periods of drought and then swell as it fills with water during periods of availability.

These layers are responsible for the grayish or bluish tinge to the stem color of many cacti.


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The stems of most cacti have adaptations to allow them to conduct photosynthesis in the absence of leaves. This is discussed further below under Metabolism. Many cacti have roots that spread out widely, but only penetrate a short distance into the soil. The concentration of salts in the root cells of cacti is relatively high. Although in most cacti, the stem acts as the main organ for storing water, some cacti have in addition large taproots. Photosynthesis requires plants to take in carbon dioxide gas CO 2.

As they do so, they lose water through transpiration. Like other types of succulents , cacti reduce this water loss by the way in which they carry out photosynthesis. The access of air to internal spaces within a plant is controlled by stomata , which are able to open and close. The need for a continuous supply of CO 2 during photosynthesis means the stomata must be open, so water vapor is continuously being lost. Crassulacean acid metabolism CAM is a mechanism adopted by cacti and other succulents to avoid the problems of the C 3 mechanism.

In full CAM, the stomata open only at night, when temperatures and water loss are lowest. CO 2 enters the plant and is captured in the form of organic acids stored inside cells in vacuoles. The stomata remain closed throughout the day, and photosynthesis uses only this stored CO 2. CAM uses water much more efficiently at the price of limiting the amount of carbon fixed from the atmosphere and thus available for growth.

At night, or when the plant is short of water, the stomata close and the CAM mechanism is used to store CO 2 produced by respiration for use later in photosynthesis. CAM-cycling is present in Pereskia species. By studying the ratio of 14 C to 13 C incorporated into a plant—its isotopic signature —it is possible to deduce how much CO 2 is taken up at night and how much in the daytime. Using this approach, most of the Pereskia species investigated exhibit some degree of CAM-cycling, suggesting this ability was present in the ancestor of all cacti.

To carry out photosynthesis, cactus stems have undergone many adaptations. Early in their evolutionary history, the ancestors of modern cacti other than one group of Pereskia species developed stomata on their stems and began to delay developing bark. However, this alone was not sufficient; cacti with only these adaptations appear to do very little photosynthesis in their stems.

Stems needed to develop structures similar to those normally found only in leaves. Immediately below the outer epidermis, a hypodermal layer developed made up of cells with thickened walls, offering mechanical support. Air spaces were needed between the cells to allow carbon dioxide to diffuse inwards.

The center of the stem, the cortex, developed " chlorenchyma " — a plant tissue made up of relatively unspecialized cells containing chloroplasts , arranged into a "spongy layer" and a " palisade layer " where most of the photosynthesis occurs. Naming and classifying cacti has been both difficult and controversial since the first cacti were discovered for science. The difficulties began with Carl Linnaeus. In , he placed the cacti he knew into two genera, Cactus and Pereskia. However, when he published Species Plantarum in —the starting point for modern botanical nomenclature—he relegated them all to one genus, Cactus.

Later botanists, such as Philip Miller in , divided cacti into several genera, which, in , Antoine Laurent de Jussieu placed in his newly created family Cactaceae. By the early 20th century, botanists came to feel Linnaeus's name Cactus had become so confused as to its meaning was it the genus or the family? The Vienna botanical congress rejected the name Cactus and instead declared Mammillaria was the type genus of the family Cactaceae.

It did, however, conserve the name Cactaceae, leading to the unusual situation in which the family Cactaceae no longer contains the genus after which it was named. The difficulties continued, partly because giving plants scientific names relies on " type specimens ".

Ultimately, if botanists want to know whether a particular plant is an example of, say, Mammillaria mammillaris , they should be able to compare it with the type specimen to which this name is permanently attached. Type specimens are normally prepared by compression and drying, after which they are stored in herbaria to act as definitive references. However, cacti are very difficult to preserve in this way; they have evolved to resist drying and their bodies do not easily compress.

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Curt Backeberg , in particular, is said to have named or renamed 1, species without one of his names ever being attached to a specimen, which, according to David Hunt , ensured he "left a trail of nomenclatural chaos that will probably vex cactus taxonomists for centuries. In , it was decided that the Cactaceae Section of the International Organization for Succulent Plant Study should set up a working party, now called the International Cactaceae Systematics Group ICSG , to produce consensus classifications down to the level of genera.

Their system has been used as the basis of subsequent classifications. Detailed treatments published in the 21st century have divided the family into around — genera and 1,—1, species, which are then arranged into a number of tribes and subfamilies. A study suggested the genus Pereskia was basal within the Cactaceae, but confirmed earlier suggestions it was not monophyletic , i. The Bayesian consensus cladogram from this study is shown below. A more recent study using fewer genes but more species also found that Pereskia was divided into these two clades, but was unable to resolve the members of the "core cacti" clade.

It was accepted that the relationships shown above are "the most robust to date. The two clades of Pereskia differ in their geographical distribution; with one exception, clade A is found around the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea , whereas clade B occurs south of the Amazon Basin. Species of Pereskia within clade A always lack two key features of the stem present in most of the remaining "caulocacti": By contrast, caulocacti, including species of Pereskia clade B, typically delay forming bark and have stomata on their stems, thus giving the stem the potential to become a major organ for photosynthesis.

The two highly specialized species of Maihuenia are something of an exception. The first cacti are thought to have been only slightly succulent shrubs or small trees whose leaves carried out photosynthesis. They lived in tropical areas that experienced periodic drought. If Pereskia clade A is a good model of these early cacti, then, although they would have appeared superficially similar to other trees growing nearby, they had already evolved strategies to conserve water some of which are present in members of other families in the order Caryophyllales.

These strategies included being able to respond rapidly to periods of rain, and keeping transpiration low by using water very efficiently during photosynthesis. The latter was achieved by tightly controlling the opening of stomata. Like Pereskia species today, early ancestors may have been able to switch from the normal C 3 mechanism, where carbon dioxide is used continuously in photosynthesis, to CAM cycling, in which when the stomata are closed, carbon dioxide produced by respiration is stored for later use in photosynthesis.

Pereskia clade B marks the beginnings of an evolutionary switch to using stems as photosynthetic organs. Stems have stomata and the formation of bark takes place later than in normal trees. The "core cacti" show a steady increase in both stem succulence and photosynthesis accompanied by multiple losses of leaves, more-or-less complete in the Cactoideae.

One evolutionary question at present unanswered is whether the switch to full CAM photosynthesis in stems occurred only once in the core cacti, in which case it has been lost in Maihuenia , or separately in Opuntioideae and Cactoideae, in which case it never evolved in Maihuenia. Thus, a study found "an extraordinarily high proportion of genera" were not monophyletic , so were not all descendants of a single common ancestor. For a more detailed discussion of the phylogeny of the cacti, see Classification of the Cactaceae.

No known fossils of cacti exist to throw light on their evolutionary history. Except for a relatively recent spread of Rhipsalis baccifera to parts of the Old World , cacti are plants of South America and mainly southern regions of North America.

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Older sources suggest an early origin around 90 — 66 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous. Other succulent plants, such as the Aizoaceae in South Africa, the Didiereaceae in Madagascar and the genus Agave in the Americas, appear to have diversified at the same time, which coincided with a global expansion of arid environments.

Cacti inhabit diverse regions, from coastal plains to high mountain areas. With one exception, they are native to the Americas , where their range extends from Patagonia to British Columbia and Alberta in western Canada. A number of centers of diversity exist. For cacti adapted to drought, the three main centers are Mexico and the southwestern United States; the southwestern Andes , where they are found in Peru , Bolivia , Chile and Argentina ; and eastern Brazil , away from the Amazon Basin.

Tree-living epiphytic and climbing cacti necessarily have different centers of diversity, as they require moister environments. They are mainly found in the coastal mountains and Atlantic forests of southeastern Brazil; in Bolivia, which is the center of diversity for the subfamily Rhipsalideae ; and in forested regions of Central America , where the climbing Hylocereeae are most diverse.

Rhipsalis baccifera is the exception; it is native to both the Americas and the Old World , where it is found in tropical Africa , Madagascar , and Sri Lanka. One theory is it was spread by being carried as seeds in the digestive tracts of migratory birds ; the seeds of Rhipsalis are adapted for bird distribution. Old World populations are polyploid , and regarded as distinct subspecies, supporting the idea that the spread was not recent. Many other species have become naturalized outside the Americas after having been introduced by people, especially in Australia , Hawaii , and the Mediterranean region.

In Australia, species of Opuntia , particularly Opuntia stricta , were introduced in the 19th century for use as natural agricultural fences and in an attempt to establish a cochineal industry. They rapidly became a major weed problem, but are now controlled by biological agents, particularly the moth Cactoblastis cactorum.

Cactus flowers are pollinated by insects, birds and bats. None are known to be wind-pollinated and self-pollination occurs in only a very few species; for example the flowers of some species of Frailea do not open cleistogamy. Bees are the most common pollinators of cacti; bee-pollination is considered to have been the first to evolve.

Butterfly-pollinated flowers are usually brightly colored, opening during the day, whereas moth-pollinated flowers are often white or pale in color, opening only in the evening and at night. Hummingbirds are significant pollinators of cacti. Species showing the typical hummingbird-pollination syndrome have flowers with colors towards the red end of the spectrum, anthers and stamens that protrude from the flower, and a shape that is not radially symmetrical , with a lower lip that bends downwards; they produce large amounts of nectar with a relatively low sugar content.

Bat-pollination is relatively uncommon in flowering plants, but about a quarter of the genera of cacti are known to be pollinated by bats —an unusually high proportion, exceeded among eudicots by only two other families, both with very few genera. Columnar cacti growing in semidesert areas are among those most likely to be bat-pollinated; this may be because bats are able to travel considerable distances, so are effective pollinators of plants growing widely separated from one another.

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The pollination syndrome associated with bats includes a tendency for flowers to open in the evening and at night, when bats are active. Other features include a relatively dull color, often white or green; a radially symmetrical shape, often tubular; a smell described as "musty"; and the production of a large amount of sugar-rich nectar.

Carnegiea gigantea is an example of a bat-pollinated cactus, as are many species of Pachycereus and Pilosocereus. The fruits produced by cacti after the flowers have been fertilized vary considerably; many are fleshy, although some are dry. All contain a large number of seeds. Fleshy, colorful and sweet-tasting fruits are associated with seed dispersal by birds.

The seeds pass through their digestive systems and are deposited in their droppings. Ants appear to disperse the seeds of a few genera, such as Blossfeldia. Drier spiny fruits may cling to the fur of mammals or be moved around by the wind. Drain, and let the cactus to cool to room temperature. In a bowl, combine all the ingredients, except the avocado, and mix well.

Arrange the avocado slices around the edges of the salad and sprinkle them with a little salt. The Lower Pecos is a fascinating region with a rich history. Beautiful and well worth a visit. I enjoy grilled nopalitos either sliced or diced as an ingredient in tacos as well. Your salad will certainly become a go-to recipe for my household. Your email address will not be published. Hinds Cave, an archaeological site rich with Cactus cultural artifacts This is the Lower Pecos region, abundant with cactus for dietary and household use. Serve at room temperature or chilled. Sources — map of Lower Pecos by archeologist Solveig Turpin, from: Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published.