Cacti comprise a wide-ranging group of plants, a diversity multiplied many fold by their fantasy variations and science fiction analogs.
Most cacti are simply fleshy plants armed with spines. Others are a bit more vigorous. Pads may be split or cleft, exposing the viscous, often coloured or scented, sometimes exceedingly sticky, interior. If spine-fringed, these act rather as the snapping jaws of a Venus flytrap. Others have supple, tentacle-like tendrils or arms, ready to whip out and embrace in a grip at one crushing and piercing. Some spines inject digestive or toxic fluids.
Watering holes used by mobile cacti may be difficult to distinguish. There may be no open or obvious water at all, but even smaller mobile cacti can extend boring siphon roots surprisingly far down through the sand. Many get all the water they need by sucking fluids out of prey animals or even commit vegetable cannibalism.
Once slain, the flesh of a cactus can be pressed to express the sap. This amounts to 10% to 90% of its weight, depending how water-fat it is. While rather slimy, the fluid can be drunk. In some it is quite palatable, a natural tonic, while in others it is quite disgusting but nonetheless can be a life-saving source of fluid. In a few instances it may be poisonous. Unfortunately, this may vary not only by species but by individual family.
Buried under many of these vegimal horrors are the indigestible remains of their meals, motley collections of ivory teeth, stone and metal objects.
SEE also Purple Haze Oasis, a symbiont that allows plants, including cacti, to thrive in deserts far more extreme than they otherwise could.
Here are recommended but a small fraction of the wondrous cacti that enrich our lands.
Barrel Cacti, Various
Cactus Cats, the Prickle Puss and Cactus Cougar
It's a cactus. It's a cat. It's a cactus AND a cat!
Cloning Cactus
Coiled Cacti, Various
Cactus, Collapsing
Cactus, Constrictor
Cactus, Hugging; Squeezing Saguaro and Bear Barrel
Cactus, Lance-launch Saguaro
Martyrs' Wall Cactus
Cactus, Moon Torch, or, Lycanthropes' Lure
Pit Prickle
Cactus, Rope-Root
Venus-in-the-Desert
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