cats birds and cactus...

First... we got rain! Not much, but enough to wet everything down...

Next... we got dead birds! Phennig was very proud of himself this morning and brought this home. I can only hope it's the mockingbird that has been pecking holes in my tomatoes...



And now, we got Leuchtenbergia principis, also known as the agave cactus...


I saw this somewhere... I've been wanting one for a while, but I hadn't seen one to buy. Actually, the only one I'd ever seen in person was at the Ft. Worth Botanic Garden, through the windows of the greenhouse... so when I saw one in a big box store, I grabbed it.

I know it doesn't look like a cactus. It looks like an agave. But those leaves aren't leaves... they're the plants tubercules.

We all know that some cactus produce ribs of spines, and others produce bumpy tubercules. These are tubercules taken to an extreme level... to the point that they look like leaves. They'll get up to 6 inches long, and the entire plant can get to 2 feet tall... This is the only species in the genus, but the genus is very closely related to barrel cactus, and they can produce intergeneric hybrids referred to as Ferobergias.

And those spines aren't half as mean looking as they appear either... they're papery.

And that's as exciting as it gets around here.

Have a great weekend everyone!