The desert prickly-pear, known to botanists as Opuntia phaeacantha, is the Southwest's most widespread and abundant species of cactus ... fruit ripened and turned red-purple as early as May.

Perhaps cactus flowers are indeed bad girls because they must lure few and far away pollinators in the parched desert ... Most will be in the red color spectrum, the favorite of these tiny ...

Just as many wildflowers are beginning to fade, cactus blooms are showing up a bit early to keep deserts around Tucson colorful. Among the early bloomers are red and yellow cholla cactus flowers ...

The Crested Saguaro Society began searching the approximately 100,000-square-mile desert for crested saguaros — the largest cactus in the US, which often grows over 40 feet tall and is adorned ...