If we went in search of plants that require a minimum of water and food, the road would lead us to the most inaccessible parts of America, Africa, the Mediterranean, Australia, India, Ceylon and Burma, and we would have to climb to the highest mountain peaks. Cacti and succulents grow there.
Poor living conditions have created cacti and succulents, groups of plants of the strangest colors and shapes that often form the only natural reservoirs with water in their habitats. With these plants, nature was deprived of food, water and companionship with other plants, but it provided them with sun and heat in abundance, even several times greater than what is needed for the normal life of one plant.
These plants are very diverse. Some look as if they are covered with a fine fluffy tunic, made up of numerous, delicate hairs that do not allow a single molecule of water to leave the plant. For others, thorns, hairs and flowers are perfectly integrated, so that they remind of great flower arrangements.
Around some species of cactus intertwined thorns created beautiful, symmetrical nets. Some cacti are reminiscent of imaginatively decorated cakes, some of laces, then of buttons, shells and other unpredictable shapes.
The flowers of these desert beauties are no less attractive. Some are multi-storey, some leathery fleshy, in several colors and layers, oblong in the shape of a tree, bell-shaped and who knows what else. The flowers often smell intense and exotic, and some species, for special reasons, open their bright flowers only at night.
I adore these interesting plants and own a few of them, they are very delicate and look very sweet with their thorns. I hope I’m not the only one who adores such gentle beings.