Editing Eastern Prickly Pear (section)

==== Status and Description ====

===== West Rock South Colony =====

[[File:West-rock-south-colony-opuntia.jpg|thumb|'''West Rock South Colony''', found on the southern half of West Rock Ridge in New Haven, CT]]My first field exploration identified a small, isolated, exposed patch of bedrock within the forest on the southern half of West Rock Ridge in New Haven, Connecticut upon which a colony of ''Opuntia humifusa'' currently lives.  I have not found any explicit evidence that the location of this colony has been previously documented.

The colony, which I have named '''West Rock South Colony''', consists of a large, clonal patch covering approximately 25 to 35 square feet.  Within 5 to 10 feet of this clonal center were approximately 6 or 7 individual outlying "satellite" cacti.

There is a bare minimum of herbaceous plants on the cacti habitat, as would be expected.  The most prominent additive feature of this colony is a large, gnarled, many-trunked juniper, specifically an Eastern Red Cedar (''Juniperus virginiana'' var. ''virginiana'').  The large clonal mass of cacti can be found tightly skirting the base of this tree.

===== West Rock North Complex =====

My second field exploration identified two very large colonies of ''Opuntia humifusa'' on the east-facing cliffs at the far northern end of West Rock Ridge in Hamden, Connecticut.  These colonies are situated barely 200 feet from each other and are rather significant inland colonies in Connecticut, primarily for their striking demonstration of circumstances in which ''O. humifusa'' can effectively expand its range via barochory (gravity) as opposed to zoochory (animal-assisted seed dispersal).  Although these two colonies were originally given separate names ('''West Rock Shepard Colony''' and '''West Rock Dunbar Colony'''), they were later collectively renamed the '''West Rock North Complex''' after changes to my naming conventions enacted in July 2012.

[[File:West-rock-dunbar-colony-opuntia.jpg|thumb|left|'''West Rock North Complex''', found on the northern end of West Rock Ridge in Hamden, CT]]Both of these colonies exhibit a structure which is supremely demonstrative of a scenario in which ''O. humifusa'' can successfully colonize surrounding habitat.  The uppermost clonal clusters of each colony are found at an elevation of roughly 500 feet.  Interestingly, numerous further clonal clusters can be found immediately below on successive terraced ledges that extend as far as 50 to 100 feet down the face of the ridge.  My observations suggest that the clonal clusters at the highest elevations are most likely the oldest, progenitor clusters and that, as cladodes and fruits broke free of these older plants, they would tumble down the face of the ridge.  Whenever these disconnected cladodes or fruits came to rest on a lower ledge, they would take root or germinate and produce a new clonal cluster.  Over a number of years then, these colonies became quite large and can be described as "cascading" down the face of the ridge.

I counted at least a dozen clonal clusters and as many as two dozen individual cacti in the southernmost of the two colonies.  The northernmost has fewer individual plants but its clonal clusters, of which I counted roughly ten, tended to be larger.  But the most impressive characteristic of this complex is the role which gravity has played in expanding the size of the colonies over time.  Both of these colonies probably began as a single, high-elevation clonal cluster on the uppermost ledges of West Rock Ridge.  With the help of gravity to carry broken cladodes and fruits to lower-elevation ridges, a process known as barochory, those two original colonies each expanded their mass by at least 1000%.  Indeed, the West Rock North Complex offers a rare demonstration of just how remarkably effective ''O. humifusa'' can be in expanding its local range without the assistance of animals as intermediaries, at least so long as the terrain is such that gravity can be harnessed to widely distribute fruits and broken cladodes.  No where else in Connecticut have I discovered a colony which clearly demonstrates the enormous potential of ''O. humifusa'' to harness barochory.

The West Rock North Complex was found in close association with Eastern Red Cedar (''Juniperus virginiana'' var. ''virginiana'') just as the considerably smaller West Rock South Colony.