Flowering beautifully under the dry, horribly hot summer sun of Land Between the Lakes were these glorious LBL Prickly Pear. I did a double take. I usually do not spend more than two or three looks at flowers, there are so many in the Land Between the Lakes area.
However, this long, hot dry spell we’re in has made even the heartiest of the LBL flowers turn sad. But looking down today as I took a visit to the South Information Station at the Southern Entrance of Land Between the Lakes, I spied these two magnificent flowers. These magic yellow flowers were literally beaming with radiance! Everything else seemed limp and gasping, including myself!
And when I looked closer, the flowers were coming off cactus plants. I drove away and then went to my house and picked up my Canon full-frame camera with my micro L lens for close ups and I returned to the LBL South Welcome Station in the Stewart County, Tennessee portion of Land Between the Lakes.
I asked the information specialist about the plants and if they are native to our area and Land Between the Lakes. She assured me they were native to our area or they would not have been planted and allowed to grow right there at the front walk and entrance of the South Welcome Center of LBL.
I know I have seen cacti growing in our area, but I never thought much about them. (My grandmother had some at her home in the Leatherwood Community of Stewart County. My grandparents got the Leatherwood farm after TVA forcibly removed them and my great-grandparents from LBL, but that is another story.)
I did not think much about cactus growing in our LBL area until today when these yellow flowers were just beaming and soaking up the sun while everything else including myself seemed wilted or in the process of melting
These plants are native to the region. They are hearty and do not take a lot of maintenance, for you flower and plant growers. I am content to let others take care of that task and enjoy them when I see them. I also love to take photos of beautiful plants; however, this summer there have been few that have made me stop and take a close look.
That failing says more about me than about the plants. But today the Eastern Prickly Pear (I have seen some other sites also call in the ‘Devil’s Tongue’) was a most welcome site at the LBL South Welcome Station.
In the hot, heat of the day these flowers made me stop. They made me look. They made me drive to my house in Dover, Tennessee and get another camera and come back and take a few shots. i will admit when I first saw them there were a few little pollinator bees on the plants and that would have made the photos even more compelling, but the little bees were gone by the time i returned. I think it was even too hot for the bees to stay out.
I took my time and got a few shots. It was not, however, too hot for the biting flies, also known as deer flies. They again just about carried me off one leg at a time. But in the heat of the mid-summer day at Land Between the Lakes, these flowering Eastern Prickly Pear cactus plants and flowers were just beautiful.
The plants and the flowers of this cactus seemed to be saying to all of the other plants, bugs and animals around, “What is wrong with you? This is perfect weather!”
Story and Photos by David R. Ross — LBLUS.com
