I can’t remember when I first met Cylindropuntia kleiniae, but it was somewhere back in my early years, during a family cross country drive, designed to expose us kids to the entirety of the US. I fell in love with cactus, despite being repeatedly stabbed as I tried to rescue a pad to take home.
Since that time, I’ve encountered this native of Texas, New Mexico, and into Mexico more times than I care to remember. This hardy pencil cactus is the Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree of cacti…kinda homely, but loveable in a motherly sort of way. In the garden, it forms an open 6′ specimen.
