Found in the northern Mexican state of Sonora, southern Arizona and New Mexico, Echinocereus fasciculatus is a clumping cylindrical cactus to 18 inches tall and 2 to 4 inches across. It is magnificently spined and can produce clumps of up to 20 gnarly heads. It produces gorgeous red to magenta flowers in the spring. Other common names include "Robust Hedgehog" and "Strawberry Cactus" and the Mexicans and indiginous people of the area call it "Pitahayita".
     This came from a TCSS rescued plant sale and was found south of Tucson. I grabbed it because unlike most of the others it showed signs it grew well last year. I knew it was a healthy plant. I love the spination, especially the colors of the new growth spines. I have no pictures of the flowers at this time but a fellow member of the Davesgarden.com gardening forums who calls himself "Xenomorf", has graciously allowed me to me use these pictures. Xenomorf has contributed thousands of pictures to the Davesgarden database and has helped many of us "Newbies" identify our plants and gain more appreciation of them. Thanks, guy!
     Update April 27th, 2007. The bud on mine has finally opened! What a gorgeous flower!
     Another update nearly one month to the day later. Amazingly this plant produced a fruit and there are seeds inside. It was splitting open so I assume it was ripe. I ate a little of it (delicious!) and saved the rest for the seeds. Hopefully they are viable.

The magnificent flowers	A nice closeup	A bud on my own plant	Open a week later
A view of the fruit, still attached	A view of the fruit after de-spining	A view of the pulp and seeds