And it’s not like flowers on cactuses are totally foreign.

Theoretically, all cactus species are capable of producing flowers, but certain conditions, like the plant’s age and environment, can prevent this from occurring. It can often take years for the flowers to grow, and when they do, they usually only last for a few days.

Unlike the glued-on fakes, real flowers also grow on stems, not straight out of the plant. And if your cactus has blue flowers, that’s another indicator that they’re not real.

Still, the dyed strawflowers fool a lot of people. And not just customers and novice gardeners, but store employees, too.

At a CVS in Oakland, Calif., where you can often find trays of small cactuses adulterated with faux flowers for sale, a store employee named Maria was positive they weren’t fake.

“Yeah, they’re real,” she told OK Whatever. “Definitely. Real.”

Those who know about the fake flowers tend to abhor them. Lisa, a Home Depot employee in Long Beach, did not seem particularly happy that her store sold them. “As a nursery person, I think it is ridiculous,” she said.

The topic has been discussed in-length in online communities and blogs. In a post on the home design website Houzz, a user named Jessica called the faux flowers “stupid” and said she wasn’t the only one who felt that way.