The Cactus Hunters: Desire and Extinction

in the Illicit Succulent Trade
By Jared D. Margulies; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2023; 392 pages, $24.95.
Reviewed by Anjulie Rao

Some years ago, a friend handed me a potted cactus. I wasn?t aware of the genus or species, only that it looked like a quintessential cactus: seven inches tall and deep forest green, its ribs dotted with malicious, symmetrical spikes. Though he had cared for it over the years, he no longer wanted this particular cactus. Looking around his home, I noticed, perhaps for the first time, that it was filled with succulents of many varieties, shapes, and conditions of health. It seemed that his minor obsession was similar to one that had overtaken my thirtysomething peers? homes. There were succulents everywhere: Senecio rowleyanus, or string of pearls, hanging from macramé-covered pots in the bay windows of Chicago two-flats; aeoniums in vibrant pinks and greens; pincushions tucked into windowsills, looking soft and dangerous.  The peculiar psychology of collecting these plants is the focus of The Cactus Hunters: Desire and Extinction in the Illicit Succulent Trade by Jared D. Margulies, an assistant professor of political ecology at the University of Alabama. Throughout the book?s richly descriptive eight chapters, Margulies recounts his global travels to document, interview, and work alongside prominent cactus collectors?some botanists, others longtime hobbyists. But these are not the eve...