North America has a tremendous diversity of cholla-like cacti, numbering in the dozens of species spanning all four deserts on both sides of the US/Mexico border. By comparison, Chile’s Atacama Desert has very few in that group. The largest and most prominent Opuntiad in Chile is Miqueliopuntia miquelii, and it’s an impressive one. Some clumps can spread to 20 or more feet across (6+ meters) and contain hundreds of stems up to two feet (60 cm) tall, and in some places expansive fields of them cover the sandy and gravelly flats below rugged hills. Not everyone likes the cholla group, but I am partial to them largely because they are important to my own gardening efforts in Arizona, and they come in a diverse array of forms, shapes, and flower colors. I’ll have to try growing this one too, assuming it can take some heat and cold away from the Pacific Ocean. (Which it may not, but I can give it a shot.)
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This is a very large clump growing near Huasco, Chile. Probably the largest agglomeration we saw in what is likely a single clump, it spanned close to 25 feet in diameter and contained perhaps a thousand or more stems.

Rainfall near Huasco averages only a few inches a year, with some years being virtually rainless and others being wetter than average, as the winter of 2017 was. When moisture is adequate, most Atacama plants take advantage of the temporarily benevolent conditions and grow rapidly, as this huge colony was doing. New joints are forming quickly in the spring warmth and flowering is about to begin. In a dry year, the plants wait and may not grow at all, electing to simply conserve resources until conditions improve again.

Miqueliopuntia flowers are a pale to medium pink color on most plants, although nearly white ones do exist. After pollination, fruits about the size of plums form. Unlike some of their cousins the prickly pears, I doubt that Miqueliopuntia fruits are very edible, since most of the North American cholla-like plants are dry, seedy, very spiny, or some unpleasant combination of all three. I admit that I am projecting this probability onto these Chilean plants without actually knowing this to be the case for sure, however.

 

The next two photos are a dry versus wet year comparison. Directly below is a photo of an area where Miqueliopuntia miquelii grow north of La Serena, Chile, as seen after a dry winter in October 2016. (Please excuse the windblown trash – this was near the main highway and a settlement of humanity, and picking plastic and paper fragments out of the cacti was a bit beyond what I wanted to do, although I usually do groom garbage out of my images before I take them if it’s easy enough.)

 

Here is the same region after a winter with roughly double the normal average precipitation, in October 2017, almost precisely one year later.

These Atacaman chollas can form immense stands on the rocky flats north of La Serena, in fact becoming one of the most dominant species ecologically. Walking through the desert here requires significant detouring around impenetrable clumps of them. The following photos were taken in the dry year of October 2016.

It’s a neat ecosystem, if you happen to appreciate Opuntiads, which I do.

Other cacti found here are Eulychnia acida, E. castanea, and Trichocereus deserticola. Copiapoa coquimbana is also present in limited distribution.

Other desert wildflowers and perennials grow intermixed with the various cacti. In areas with significant livestock grazing, the centers of the cacti are some of the only places where the flowers can escape being eaten. Below, pink Alstroemeria magnifica and yellow Caesalpinia angulata crowd into the center of a clump of Miqueliopuntia.

Below, Alstroemeria magnifica flourishes amidst the protective cover of the Miqueliopuntia, and other larger cacti as well.

 

Another wildflower that finds a home tangled up with its spinier neighbors is the rare and brilliant garra de leon, or lion’s claw, Leontochir ovallei (syn. Bomarea ovallei). Related to the alstroemerias, lion’s claw is endangered by browsing goats, cattle, and guanacos which eat the soft, succulent leaves and flower heads. Steep slopes and hanging out with prickly cohorts offers a measure of protection, however.

 

I hope that this post on Miqueliopuntia miquelii has increased the awareness and appreciation of the role this species plays in providing habitat and shelter for other wildflowers as well as desert animals. Since the internet doesn’t have all that many nice photos of this interesting plant as of this writing, it could use a bit more good press. 🙂