Succulents

Choosing, Growing, and Caring for Cactuses and other Succulents

John Bagnasco, Bob Reidmuller

• Publisher: Cool Springs Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780760366059
• Topic: Ciencias biológicas
• Subtopic: Horticultura

Loved the world over for their unique beauty and lower maintenance requirements, this gift-able edition of Succulents shows you how to choose and take care of the ever-popular succulent. Cactuses and other succulentsare wildly popular in homes the world over, regardless of climate. They're resilient, beautiful, and easy to care for as long as you know what you're doing.Whether you live in a warm, dry climate and want to grow a whole cactus garden outdoors or you'd like to add one of these alluring species to your indoor windowsill, this book has what you need to pick the perfect plants for you and make them thrive. With this all-inclusive guide, you'll get all theinformation you'll needon:

• Color combinations
• Sizes and shapes
• Container growing
• Watering
• Grooming
• Propagation

Learneverything you need to know about succulents! Includes more than 100 plant profiles with corresponding color photography, with details that will help you succeed in gardening prickly and waxy varieties of all kinds.

1

What Are Cactuses? What Are Succulents?

If you’re new to these plants, you might be a bit confused by the terms cactus and succulent. But there is a simple mantra you can remember: all cactuses are succulents, but not all succulents are cactuses. Although both are succulents (from the Latin succulentus, meaning “sap” or “juice”) and store moisture in their roots, stems, and/or leaves, the pickle is in the prickle!

Specifically, cactuses are equipped with a special organ called an areole that is responsible for several things. This includes the creation of branches or stems, flowers, fruits, spines, and, believe it or not, even true leaves in some members. But it is the areole-born spine that sets cactuses apart from all other succulents. Cactus spines produced from areoles are akin to human hair or fingernails—they are nonvascular, are not alive, and there is nothing in them that will leak out.

Beautiful succulent dish gardens.

Areoles are easy to spot because they look like small round or oval fuzzy buttons, but woe be to those who are fooled. Aside from the obvious large spines on many cactuses in the subfamily Opuntioideae (which one would obviously avoid touching), there is a second line of defense on the areole itself. Small, sometimes not easily visible, modified spines known as glochids lurk at the base of the larger spines. They can detach very easily and can cause an annoying, lingering irritation to the skin and are not easily extricated. They have an extra punch of being so small and light as to become airborne and find their way into the eyes, mouth, or nostrils. It is often far less debilitating to be jabbed with a large barbed spine that can be easily (albeit painfully) seen and removed.

In non-cactus succulents, on the other hand, spines—or, more correctly, thorns—are vascular in nature, meaning they have arisen from the surface of the plant as a modification of the skin and are a living extension of that plant’s tissues. Inside, they have sap or juice just like the rest of the plant, which you can easily see by snipping one with some shears. Not only will moist tissue be visible, but also in many cases it will ooze liquid, or “bleed.”

Watch out for glochids—the little spines can cause disproportionate irritation if they get lodged in your skin.

Areoles are one of the distinguishing features of cactuses.

Spines, Thorns, and Prickles

In everyday English, these three terms are often used interchangeably, but scientifically they actually refer to different structures. Keep in mind that in the hundreds of thousands of members of the plant kingdom there will be some exceptions to the information here, but the general overview is this:

* Cactuses have spines of various forms, purposes, and appearances. They are usually barbed, causing them to work deeper and deeper into whatever they touch. They are nonvascular, not living, defense mechanisms.

* Non-cactus succulents and many other families of plants have thorns (though more often, but incorrectly, called spines). Thorns are living vascular extensions of the plant’s tissue and are not typically barbed. Some succulents, such as agaves and yuccas, have at the very tip of their leaves what is referred to as an apical spine, but as previously explained, it is physiologically a thorn.

* The third well-known example of pointed plant protection has been so wrong in everyday speech for so long that its correct name is mostly known only to rosarians. Contrary to popular belief, roses and members of the rose family (like the blackberry and other brambles) don’t actually have thorns! They have prickles. It is not unusual for people to say they have been pricked by a rose, and centurie...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction: More Than Hens and Chicks
• 1| What Are Cactuses? What Are Succulents?
• 2| Cactuses and Succulents Outdoors
• 3| Cactuses and Succulents Indoors
• Featured Plants: 100 Top Choices of Cactuses and Succulents
• Index
• About the Authors
• Copyright