Cacti, or simply cacti, refer to perennial flowering plants. It is generally believed that they separated evolutionarily about 40 million years ago. Then Africa and South America were already separated from each other, and North America had not yet joined with the South.
Despite the fact that the fossil remains of cacti of those times were not found, it is believed that they first appeared in South America, and the northern continent were only 5-10 million years ago.
Where do cacti grow in nature?
To this day, cacti in the wild grow mainly on the American continents. From there they were once transported by people and carried by birds to Europe.
However, representatives of cacti in nature can be found not only in America. Some species grow long ago in the tropical part of Africa, in Ceylon and other islands of the Indian Ocean.
Where else grow cacti: thickets of this plant can be found in Australia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands, Monaco and Spain. In the wild, cacti grow on the territory of the former Soviet Union. In most cases, cacti in these places were artificially introduced by man.
Conditions for the growth of cacti
Most cacti prefer steppes, deserts and semi-deserts. Sometimes they can be found in the humid rainforests. Rarely, but they still grow on wet coasts.
In Mexico, cacti grow in sagebrush, creosote, and also in high-mountain succulent deserts. In the high desert deserts cacti are concentrated mainly on the Mexican plateau, as well as in the western and eastern parts of the Sierra Madre.
In what deserts grow cacti: cacti are quite extensive and densely populate the deserts of Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Argentina.
In which countries grow cacti?
If you designate the geography of cactus growth by country, the list will be approximately the following: Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, USA (Texas, Arizona, New Mexico), Canada, China, India, Australia, Spain, Monaco, Madagascar, Lanka, the western countries of Africa.
As ornamental plants, people have learned to grow cacti in the open field almost everywhere, and except, perhaps, the Arctic. As indoor plants, cacti have long inhabited the entire planet.