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Opuntia

Opuntia
Family: Cactaceae
Opuntia image
Blake Wellard
  • FNA
  • VPAP
  • Gleason & Cronquist
  • Resources
Donald J. Pinkava in Flora of North America (vol. 4)
Trees or shrubs, erect to trailing, usually many branched, sometimes forming clumps or mats; trunk, when present, initially segmented, appearing continuous with age, main axis determinate, usually terete. Stem segments green or sometimes reddish to purple, usually flattened, circular, elliptic, ovate, lanceolate, or obovate to oblanceolate, 2-60(-120) × 1.2-40 cm, nearly smooth to tuberculate, glabrous or pubescent; areoles usually elliptic, circular, or obovate, 3-8(-10) × 1-7(-10) mm; wool white, gray, or tan to brown, aging white or gray to black. Spines 0-15+ per areole, white, yellow to brown, red-brown to gray, or black, sometimes partly to wholly white chalky (chalkiness disappearing when wet), aging gray to dark brown to black, with epidermis intact, not sheathed, acicular to subulate, sometimes setose or with hairlike bristles, terete to angular-flattened, to 75(-170) mm, tips sometimes paler or yellow. Glochids in adaxial crescent at margin of areole, in tuft or encircling areole margin, white to yellow to brown, or red-brown, aging white to brown or red-brown. Flowers bisexual or sometimes functionally staminate, radially symmetric; outer tepals green to yellow with margins tinged color of inner tepals; inner tepals pale yellow to orange, pink to red or magenta, rarely white (unicolored) or with base of a different color (bicolored), oblong to spatulate, emarginate-apiculate; nectar chamber simple, open, not covered by proximal thickening style. Pollen yellow, grains reticulate or foveolate (opuntioid type). Fruits sometimes proliferating (sprouting from another fruit), if fleshy, green, yellow, or red to purple or, if dry, tan to gray, straight, sometimes stipitate, clavate to cylindric, ovoid, or obovoid to subspheric, 10-120 × 8-120 mm, fleshy to juicy or dry, smooth or tuberculate, spineless or spiny, sometimes burlike. Seeds pale yellow to tan or gray, generally circular to reniform, flattened (discoid) to subspheric, angular to squarish, sometimes warped, 2-7 × 2-7 mm, glabrous, commonly bearing 1-4 large, shallow depressions due to pressures from adjacent developing seeds; girdle protruding 0.3-3.5 mm, forming ridge or flat wing, or not protruding. x = 11.

Many taxa are cultivated for ornamental plants, food, and animal fodder. Some species of Opuntia become obnoxious weeds; some species have been planted in Africa for stabilization of sand dunes.

Three species have been reported (L. D. Benson 1982) as escaped from cultivation: Opuntia leucotricha de Candolle, O. tomentosa Salm-Dyck, and O. monacantha (Willdenow) Haworth (as O. vulgaris). No extant populations are known in the flora.

Many interspecific hybrids are known and have been named; only five are fully treated here; two other named hybrids recognized by the author are briefly described and cross-referenced under putative parent taxa.

JANAS 35(2)
PLANT: Trees or shrubs, erect, decumbent to trailing, much branched, the branches segmented. STEM SEGMENTS: (pads), of varied lengths and widths, strongly flattened or, in a few species, subcylindric to subspheric, bearing small, ephemeral, fleshy, conic, leaves. AREOLES bearing glochids and a dense wool. SPINES: with epidermis intact, not sheathing; major spines flattened to cylindric. FLOWERS: borne singly in areole; inner tepals pale yellow to orange, pink to red or magenta, rarely white, OR with bases of a different color, oblong to spatulate, emarginate-apiculate; outer tepals green to yellow with margins tinged color of inner tepals; stamens thigmotropic. POLLEN GRAINS: with reticulate ornamentation. FRUITS: fleshy to juicy (bleeding) and green, yellow or red to purple or dry and tan to gray, clavate to cylindric to subspheric, spineless or spiny, bearing on top an umbilicus (a large, usually depressed scar left from abscised flower parts). SEEDS: glabrous, pale yellow to tan to gray, 3-10 mm long, generally circular to reniform, flattened (discoid) to subspheric, angular to squarish, sometimes warped, commonly bearing 1-4 large, shallow depressions due to pressures from adjacent developing seeds, the girdle (midvein of funiculus which envelopes seed) smooth to protruding, ridged to strongly winged. NOTES: About 180 species (14 in the flora); Canada to southern Argentina, West Indies, Galápagos Islands. Many introduced to the Old World; many cultivated. (Origin of “opuntia” uncertain; presumably based on name of Greek town, Opus, perhaps, where a cactus-like plant grew). REFERENCES: Pinkava, Donald J. Cactaceae. 2003. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 35(2).
Vascular plants of NE US and adjacent Canada
Stems branched and jointed, the joints cylindric to flattened; spines and glochids arising from the areoles, or the plants virtually spineless; fls borne within the areoles near the tips of joints of the previous year; pet and sep rotate from the summit of the scarcely prolonged hypanthium; stamens shorter than the pet; seeds wingless. 150+, New World.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Species within checklist: ASU - BIO 313 - Flora of Arizona campus plants 2018 || << 1 - 50 taxa >>
Opuntia abyssi
Media resource of Opuntia abyssi
Map not
Available
Opuntia acaulis
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Opuntia aciculata
Media resource of Opuntia aciculata
Map not
Available
Opuntia alamosensis
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Opuntia alta
Media resource of Opuntia alta
Map not
Available
Opuntia amarilla
Media resource of Opuntia amarilla
Map not
Available
Opuntia ammophila
Media resource of Opuntia ammophila
Map not
Available
Opuntia amyclaea
Media resource of Opuntia amyclaea
Map not
Available
Opuntia anacantha
Media resource of Opuntia anacantha
Map not
Available
Opuntia angustata
Media resource of Opuntia angustata
Map not
Available
Opuntia anteojoensis
Media resource of Opuntia anteojoensis
Map not
Available
Opuntia antillana
Media resource of Opuntia antillana
Map not
Available
Opuntia apurimacensis
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Opuntia arcei
Media
not available
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Available
Opuntia arechavaletae
Media resource of Opuntia arechavaletae
Map not
Available
Opuntia articulata
Media
not available
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Available
Opuntia assumptionis
Media
not available
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Available
Opuntia atrispina
Media resource of Opuntia atrispina
Map not
Available
Opuntia atropes
Media resource of Opuntia atropes
Map not
Available
Opuntia auberi
Media resource of Opuntia auberi
Map not
Available
Opuntia aurantiaca
Media
not available
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Available
Opuntia aurea
Media resource of Opuntia aurea
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Available
Opuntia aureispina
Media resource of Opuntia aureispina
Map not
Available
Opuntia austrina
Media resource of Opuntia austrina
Map not
Available
Opuntia azurea
Media resource of Opuntia azurea
Map not
Available
Opuntia bakeri
Media resource of Opuntia bakeri
Map not
Available
Opuntia basilaris
Media resource of Opuntia basilaris
Map not
Available
Opuntia bensonii
Media resource of Opuntia bensonii
Map not
Available
Opuntia bisetosa
Media resource of Opuntia bisetosa
Map not
Available
Opuntia boldinghii
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Opuntia bonplandii
Media
not available
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Available
Opuntia borinquensis
Media
not available
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Available
Opuntia bradtiana
Media resource of Opuntia bradtiana
Map not
Available
Opuntia brasiliensis
Media resource of Opuntia brasiliensis
Map not
Available
Opuntia bravoana
Media resource of Opuntia bravoana
Map not
Available
Opuntia burrageana
Media resource of Opuntia burrageana
Map not
Available
Opuntia caboensis
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Opuntia caesia
Media resource of Opuntia caesia
Map not
Available
Opuntia calmalliana
Media resource of Opuntia calmalliana
Map not
Available
Opuntia campii
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Opuntia cantabrigiensis
Media resource of Opuntia cantabrigiensis
Map not
Available
Opuntia caracassana
Media resource of Opuntia caracassana
Map not
Available
Opuntia cardenche
Media resource of Opuntia cardenche
Map not
Available
Opuntia castillae
Media resource of Opuntia castillae
Map not
Available
Opuntia cespitosa
Media resource of Opuntia cespitosa
Map not
Available
Opuntia chaffeyi
Media resource of Opuntia chaffeyi
Map not
Available
Opuntia chiangiana
Media resource of Opuntia chiangiana
Map not
Available
Opuntia chihuahuensis
Media resource of Opuntia chihuahuensis
Map not
Available
Opuntia chisosensis
Media resource of Opuntia chisosensis
Map not
Available
Opuntia chlorotica
Media resource of Opuntia chlorotica
Map not
Available
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