Description
Resilience, Long Spined Purple Prickly Pear, Coronado Trail, AZ 4.6.21 11:30 am
(Opuntia Macrocentra)
36×48 oil on canvas 2024
The land in southeastern Arizona is beautifully diverse and colorful. There are green cotton fields along the Gila River, dusty rose desert slopes near Duncan, and patinaed earth from copper mines near Morency. It’s where the San Francisco River gushes after monsoon rains and the Coronado trail winds, 460 times, from the desert floor to the thick pines near Hannagan Meadow. The contrasts are beautiful, to say the least.
Here, the purple Long Spined Prickly Pear thrives. This opuntia is full of contrasts, too: its pads range from green to purple, its pale pink buds burst into crimson and bright yellow blooms, and its unusually long spines range from dark navy to chalky blue.
As is the case with so many of Arizona native blooms, this small opuntia is also resilient. Despite harsh summers and little rain, it thrives, bursting forth with blooms that support pollinators and fruit for wildlife. This beauty was not only surviving but thriving, serving as an example to us all.
