Closeup of teddy-bear cholla in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, AZ
About this photograph
- Creator
- Margery H. Freeman
- Date created
- Unknown
- Location
- Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona
- License
- This photograph copyright ©2009. All Rights Reserved
Related media
Learn more
- Search LEARN NC for Arizona, AZ, cacti, National Monument, Organ Pipe Cactus, plants, Sonoran Desert, and teddy-bear cholla.
In the classroom
- See our collection of articles on visual literacy for ideas on using photographs meaningfully in the classroom.
Closeup of teddy-bear cholla in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona. Teddy-bear cholla received its name from the appealing, fuzzy look of its spines from a distance, but in reality, the teddy-bear cholla’s spikes are threatening and impenetrable. The plant drops stems easily; it propagates when animals carry these stems on their coats to new places. Desert packrats use the fallen stems to fortify their burrows.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt created Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on April 13, 1937. The monument protects a diverse section of the Sonoran Desert, 95% of which is designated wilderness. It hosts twenty-six species of cacti, including its namesake, the organ pipe cactus, as well as the giant saguaro. The monument has been home to Native American, Mexican, and European groups, and was formerly the intersection of many trading routes. Mining, ranching, and overgrazing once scarred the land, and evidence from these activities is still apparent today. In 1976, the United Nations declared the monument an International Biosphere Reserve.
