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Opuntia

Opuntia
Family: Cactaceae
Opuntia image
Ries Lindley
  • 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 || << 51 - 100 taxa >>
Opuntia clarkiorum
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Opuntia clavata
Media resource of Opuntia clavata
Map not
Available
Opuntia clavellina
Media resource of Opuntia clavellina
Map not
Available
Opuntia cochenillifera
Media resource of Opuntia cochenillifera
Map not
Available
Opuntia cochinelifera
Media resource of Opuntia cochinelifera
Map not
Available
Opuntia cochinelifera x phaeacantha
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Opuntia cochinera
Media resource of Opuntia cochinera
Map not
Available
Opuntia columbiana
Media resource of Opuntia columbiana
Map not
Available
Opuntia comonduensis
Media resource of Opuntia comonduensis
Map not
Available
Opuntia cordobensis
Media resource of Opuntia cordobensis
Map not
Available
Opuntia crassa
Media resource of Opuntia crassa
Map not
Available
Opuntia crystalenia
Media resource of Opuntia crystalenia
Map not
Available
Opuntia cubensis
Media resource of Opuntia cubensis
Map not
Available
Opuntia curassavica
Media resource of Opuntia curassavica
Map not
Available
Opuntia cylindrica
Media resource of Opuntia cylindrica
Map not
Available
Opuntia cymochila
Media resource of Opuntia cymochila
Map not
Available
Opuntia darrahiana
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Opuntia deamii
Media resource of Opuntia deamii
Map not
Available
Opuntia decumbens
Media resource of Opuntia decumbens
Map not
Available
Opuntia dejecta
Media resource of Opuntia dejecta
Map not
Available
Opuntia delaetiana
Media resource of Opuntia delaetiana
Map not
Available
Opuntia delicata
Media
not available
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Available
Opuntia depressa
Media resource of Opuntia depressa
Map not
Available
Opuntia deserta
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Opuntia dillenii
Media resource of Opuntia dillenii
Map not
Available
Opuntia diploursina
Media resource of Opuntia diploursina
Map not
Available
Opuntia discata
Media resource of Opuntia discata
Map not
Available
Opuntia diversispina
Media resource of Opuntia diversispina
Map not
Available
Opuntia durangensis
Media resource of Opuntia durangensis
Map not
Available
Opuntia durangensis x wilcoxii
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Opuntia echios
Media resource of Opuntia echios
Map not
Available
Opuntia edwardsii
Media resource of Opuntia edwardsii
Map not
Available
Opuntia eichlamii
Media resource of Opuntia eichlamii
Map not
Available
Opuntia ekmanii
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Opuntia elata
Media resource of Opuntia elata
Map not
Available
Opuntia elatior
Media resource of Opuntia elatior
Map not
Available
Opuntia elizondoana
Media resource of Opuntia elizondoana
Map not
Available
Opuntia ellisiana
Media resource of Opuntia ellisiana
Map not
Available
Opuntia emoryi
Media resource of Opuntia emoryi
Map not
Available
Opuntia engelmannii
Media resource of Opuntia engelmannii
Map not
Available
Opuntia engelmannii x phaeacantha
Media resource of Opuntia engelmannii x phaeacantha
Map not
Available
Opuntia eocarpa
Media resource of Opuntia eocarpa
Map not
Available
Opuntia estevesii
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Opuntia excelsa
Media resource of Opuntia excelsa
Map not
Available
Opuntia feroacantha
Media resource of Opuntia feroacantha
Map not
Available
Opuntia ficus-indica
Media resource of Opuntia ficus-indica
Map not
Available
Opuntia filipendula
Media resource of Opuntia filipendula
Map not
Available
Opuntia flexospina
Media resource of Opuntia flexospina
Map not
Available
Opuntia fragilis
Media resource of Opuntia fragilis
Map not
Available
Opuntia fuliginosa
Media resource of Opuntia fuliginosa
Map not
Available
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