The Cholla Cactus Garden, located about 12 miles south of the park's North Entrance, is home to one of the few stands of cholla cactus in the park. The short, quarter-mile Cholla Cactus Garden Nature ...

This is not a story about the Christmas cactus, a succulent with wintertime blooms and Central American origin. The Christmas cholla, or Cylindropuntia leptocaulis, as its scientifically known, bears ...

For some families in colder parts of the country, picking out the perfect evergreen tree to decorate is an obvious Christmas tradition. Families in the Valley have to be a bit more creative. Firs and ...

Southerners may have their lush, shiny-green-leafed holly trees, bedecked with cardinal-red berries, and easterners their twiggy, red-fruited winterberry bushes, but we here in the Southwest have our ...

The dazzling white blooms of saguaros and showy yellow palo verde trees get lots of attention at this time of year — but the often underrated blooms of cholla and prickly pear cacti are putting on ...

Southerners may have their lush, shiny-green-leafed holly trees, bedecked with cardinal-red berries, and easterners their twiggy, red-fruited winterberry bushes, but we here in the Southwest have our ...

Multiple stages of cactus bugs on tree cholla cacti. Most insects in this photo are juveniles. There is one adult on the cactus fruit (top right) and one newly eclosed (pale) adult at the lower left.

Spring has once again returned to the deserts of North America, and with her return, so too have the amazing colorful blooms of desert wildflowers and cacti. Because of the winter rains, this land, so ...