This stamp booklet celebrates the beauty of cacti, flowering perennial succulents that are abundant in the Southwest and other parts of the world. Most cacti grow very slowly and are tough, adaptable and low maintenance.
Cactus flowers are often large and flamboyant, with colors of white, red, pink, orange or yellow. Some flowers are also richly scented, and the nectar and colors attract pollinators such as bats, bees and birds.
These stamps celebrate the beauty of the cactus flower; each stamp features a photograph of one of these ten cacti flowers:
Although mostly a plant of the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico and Texas, echinocactus horizonthalonius is also found in far south Arizona (the nicholii variety), in and around Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, where specimens are generally larger than in the east - up to 12 inches tall. Six inches is more typical. The attractive, slow growing species has broad ribs bearing clusters of (5 to 8) radial spines growing close to the body, and a curved central spine pointing downwards, giving a generally stout, compact appearance. The greenish-gray surface is not obscured by the spines. Bright pink flowers form at the top in early summer, growing out of a dense mat of woolly hairs.
