Mountain Ball Cactus

Mountain Ball Cactus Gallery

1 of length pictures

Two mountain ball cacti growing in a meadow with a few trees in the background. The plant is spherical but somewhat flattened. The dazzling flowers emerge from the top of the cactus ball.

Pink flowers of the mountain ball cactus with yellow pollen scattered about on the petals.

A view looking down on three of the large flowers of a mountain ball cactus which hide most of the cactus ball below.

A very large Mountain Ball Cactus blooming in upper Beaver Meadows close to the paved road.

Along one side of the Cub Lake Trail a hiker can see a dry area with this mountain ball cactus. The same hiker by merely turning their head would see a vastly different ecological zone with a stream, ponds and lush wet meadows.

A blooming mountain ball cactus growing by a boulder with snow covered Longs Peak and the front range in the distant background.

Two mountain ball cacti growing in a meadow with a few trees in the background. The plant is spherical but somewhat flattened

Pink flowers of the mountain ball cactus with yellow pollen scattered about on the petals

A view looking down on three of the large flowers of a mountain ball cactus which hide most of the cactus ball below

A very large Mountain Ball Cactus blooming in upper Beaver Meadows close to the paved road

Along one side of Cub Lake Trail dry ecological zone with this mountain ball cactus

blooming mountain ball cactus growing by a boulder with snow covered Longs Peak and the front range in the background

Note: 1

Ruth Ashton Nelson, Handbook of Rocky Mountain Plants, Fourth Edition, 1992, Revised by Roger L Williams.

Nelson's book covers plants in the Rocky Mountains through Montana, Idaho , Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Northern Arizona and New Mexico. It is a technical book 444 pages long with keying of the plants.

This book has no photographs but has numerous well done drawings. For the non technical reader the book provides a detailed glossary and discussions of technical topics. The discussions for individual plants and their families are often illuminating and helpful.

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Note: 2

Ann H. Zwinger, Beatrice E. Willard, Land Above the Trees, A Guide to American Alpine Tundra, 1972, The University of Arizona Press.

This book covers alpine tundra in the contiguous United States. It describes the plants, the flowers, the ecology and the animals. There are no photographs but throughout the book are excellent detailed line drawing of the plants. This book is a pleasure to read. The beauty of the prose of Zwinger and Willard often compares to the beauty of the flowers they describe.

Zwinger and Willard are noted for their studies of alpine tundra on Trail Ridge in Rocky Mountain National Park. The tundra research plots where they studied are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

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Note: 3

William A. Weber, Colorado Flora: Eastern Slope, 1990, University Press of Colorado. This is an authoritative source. Weber was a leader in his field of botany.

This is a technical book that an amateur may find difficult to use. But it contains much interesting information for the curious. The book has some color photographs and numerous drawings. The descriptions of plants and flowers tend to be technical but the glossary is very useful to a nontechnical person.

Weber was Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado at Boulder and former curator at the University of Colorado Museum Herbarium. Weber passed away in 2020.

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Note: 4

Joseph F. Duft and Robert K. Moseley, Alpine Wildflowers of the Rocky Mountains, third edition 1992, Mountain Press Publishing Company.

This scope of this book is limited to alpine flowers which allows it to cover each plant in greater detail. Every or almost every plant description is two or more paragraphs long. Little less than half the book's pages have two or more color photographs which aid in identification.

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Note: 5

Linda H. Beidleman, Richard G. Beidleman, and Beatrice E. Willard, Plants of Rocky Mountain National Park, A Complete Revision of Ruth Ashton Nelson's Popular Manual, 2000, Rocky Mountain Nature Association and Falcon Publishing Inc.

This is a technical publication written with an eye towards the interested non-technical reader. The book has line drawings of plants as well as numerous photographs. There is a significant amount of introductory material including discussions of the contributions of Ruth Ashton Nelson and others to the study of botany in the Estes Park area,.

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Note: 6

Dianne K. Halleck and Delbert Wiens, Department of Botany, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, TAXONOMIC STATUS OF CLAYTONIA ROSEA AND C. LANCEOLATA (PORTULACACEAE). published in Annals of the Missouri Botanical Gardens, v 53, 1966, p 205-212.

paper

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Note: 7

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center has a succinct but informative description of the alpine version of the Western Wallfower and the different scientific names used by botanist.

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Note: 8

Scott F. Smith, The Native Orchids of Colorado, A Botanical Adventure of an Amateur, Published in: North American Native Orchid Journal, volume 13 (3), p 127-182, Oct 20, 2007.

This excellent detailed reference on Colorado orchids can be found online at www.swcoloradowildflowers.com.

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