Exoten und Garten Forum
Hardy Palm and Subtropical Board
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Re: Hunting for the native range of cactus on the East Coast:
Message from Ken TN
Mike, when I was a little kid my dad used to take me for walks to look at trees and flowers. He took me to a women he knew that had a huge (to me) garden. In this garden was an enormous boulder full of cracks that had a strange looking plant that I had never seen before growing in the cracks. When I asked what it was I was told it was a prickly pear cactus. At that age I didn't know enough to ask if it was native lol. It looked exactly like your cactus. This was probably around 1950 in Naugatuck CT. I remember that incident as though it happened yesterday. We've got the same here in TN growing on shallow soils on limestone outcrops.