Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2005 00:33:50 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Well of Miriam
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 08:36 PM 8/3/05 -0400, Eric Jablow wrote:
>
>On Aug 3, 2005, at 4:04 PM, dicconf wrote:
>
>> Cactus is a new world plant, however.  I remember Willy Ley being
>> thankful
>> that, when a Sicilian sat down on a cactus, he didn't know where it
>> originally came from.
>>
>> -- Dick Eney
>
>Really?  Native Israelis are called sabras, named after a desert
>cactus.  Was that cactus imported from the Americas?  Or is that plant
>not actually a cactus?

My understanding is that Cactus is an American plant.  The old world has
plants that look a lot like cacti (thick skin, few or no leaves, etc.), and
inhabit similar environments, but they aren't related.  Someone who isn't a
botanist could easily mistake them though.

<googles>

http://www.answers.com/topic/cactus says, in part:
--------------
Cacti are almost exclusively New World plants. This means that they are
native only in North America and South America. There is however one
exception, Rhipsalis baccifera; this species has a pantropical
distribution, occurring in the Old World in tropical Africa, Madagascar and
Sri Lanka as well as in tropical America. This plant is thought to be a
relatively recent colonist in the Old World (within the last few thousand
years), probably carried as seeds in the digestive tracts of migratory
birds. Many other cacti have become naturalized to similar environments in
other parts of the world after being introduced by man.

Although many other succulent plants exist in the Old World, even a few
with spines, they are not cacti because they lack areoles. These
specialized structures are unique to cacti and identify the family.
-------------

-- Mike B.

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