Most well known for larger, charismatic flora such as the Saguaro, the Arizona deserts are also home to some of the smallest, rarest and hardest to find cacti and other succulents in existence. For the past several years, Peter Breslin has been traveling into many of the obscure locales of Arizona from his home base of Tempe, searching out the least well known, marginal, rare and endemic cacti of the state. From Peniocereus striatus in Tohono O'odam country to the vast expanses of the House Rock Valley and Kaibab Plateau areas, from the Mojave County transition zones to the Mojave Desert to the far southeastern transitions to the Chihuahuan Desert, Peter has found and photographed many of these elusive, cryptic cacti and succulents, not often seen in habitat except by luck or after a long search. His presentation will feature dozens of photos and a lot of information on the plants and their habitats.

Peter teaches high school mathematics at New School for the Arts and Academics, a charter school in Tempe, AZ. He has logged more than 80,000 miles on his 1991 Honda Civic in the past 7 years or so, searching out and photographing rare, endemic cacti in Arizona, New Mexico, California, Texas, Sonora and the entire Baja Peninsula. He is also a performing drummer and pianist, and he grows a collection of mostly North American cacti which now takes up every available square foot of sunlit space in his very small Tempe yard."

I hope that you will come to this special program presentation and find out what is truly out there in Arizona! Peter will present an excellent program that should truly be a challenge to those wanting to know more about the rare and unusual cactus and succulents of Arizona. We will enjoy Peter's excellent program, have some great food, win a few raffle plants and get a free plant at the closing bell!

Do you know which three unusual Arizona cacti these (below) are and where they are found? Come to the February meeting and either brag about it or find out more!