How does a cactus reproduce?

Answer

Dear Isa,

Cacti have very beautiful flowers. There are in all colors. For some cacti you have to wait a long time for them to flower, others get regular flowers and still others get flowers that bloom only one night. Those flowers have many stamens, which are the male reproductive organs; at the same time, those flowers also have a pistil, which is the female reproductive organ. A cactus is therefore not neuter, but hermaphroditic, meaning male and female at the same time. By the way, not only with cacti flowers are constructed in this way. Most of the flowers we see in nature around us are hermaphroditic. The flowers also contain nectar. Thirsty desert animals (insects, bats and other animals) put their snouts in the cactus flower to lick up the nectar. Meanwhile, the pollen from the stamens sticks to their snouts. At the next flower they visit, the pollen from their snout passes to the sticky pistil. Then the pollination has happened. Then comes fertilization: any pollen grain that has stuck to the pistil will germinate on top of the pistil and grow a small tube down to the very bottom of the pistil. There, the sperm cell from the pollen grain will report with the egg cell that is at the bottom of the pistil. Once that has happened, the egg can grow into a plant seed. The flower will wilt and a cactus fruit will develop, full of plant seeds. Some cactus fruits are dry, open and release their seeds that can germinate into a new cactus. Other cacti have juicy fruits, just think of prickly pears that you find in the supermarket around Christmas. These are eaten by animals that ensure that the seeds end up in a different place through their excrement.

Yet for some cacti there is another way of preplanting. The main plant then gets small secondary plants at the bottom. This way you get a group of similar plants together. A gardener can divide such a group in two or tear it and replant it, so you get two identical cactus groups. From some cacti, the gardener can also cut off a piece, let it dry for a while and replant it in a pot. We call that cuttings. Creeping cacti, those are cacti that do not grow in height but lie flat on the ground, they develop roots after a while, where the stem touches the ground, that is also a way of propagation. Tearing, cuttings, etc… we call asexual reproduction, it’s actually cloning. The reproduction via flowers – seeds, we call sexual reproduction.