You say cactuses, I say cacti.

When there’s a Chihuly exhibit on at the Desert Botanical Garden, it’s easy to forget that his creations are just visitors and when they leave, the natives will still be there, patiently waiting for their recognition. If they don’t get their moment in the sun, well, let’s just say they can be a bit prickly!

The name “Creeping Devil” should give you some idea of how insidious this type of cactus is. You might say you’re looking at a plethora of cacti. Or would you be seeing a lot of cactuses? I decided to look it up online and found that either is acceptable. More than a few sources mentioned that “cacti” is the Latin plural while “cactuses” is English. See? You now know a little Latin.

This one reminds me of a plant version of a boa constrictor.

And then we have the cactus with the unusual shapes. Of maybe it’s more than one cactus. Hard to tell from this shot. But that’s it for this addition of the Cactus Chronicles. I’m sure you’ll be seeing more. In the meantime, enjoy the weekend. And since I was plunging into the morass of English/Latin/forms/etc., I began to wonder where “meantime” came from. It’s not, as you might think, related to Greenwich mean time but, long explanation short, comes from “mean” (in the middle or in a middle place) and of course “time.” Hence a time between now and later. 🙂 Aren’t we just learned as all get-out today (and no, we’re not exploring “all get-out.”) Sounds as if it should be related to the current “Shut the door!” (not meant in the literal sense.) But if you shut the door, you can’t all get out, so… 🙂