Opuntia leucotricha (Aarons Beard Prickly Pear, Arborescent Prickly-Pear, Arborescent Pricklypear, Colorado, Duraznillo Blanco, Nopal, Nopal Blanco, Nopal Duraznillo)

Common Names

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Common Names in English:

Aaron´s-Beard Prickly-Pear, Aarons Beard Prickly Pear, Aaronsbeard, Arborescent Prickly-Pear, Arborescent Pricklypear, Colorado, Duraznillo Blanco, Nopal, Nopal Blanco, Nopal Duraznillo, Prickly-Pear

Common Names in French:

Opunce á Poils Blancs

Common Names in Spanish:

Duraznillo Blanco, Nopal Blanco, Nopal Colorado, Nopal Duraznillo

Description

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Family Cactaceae

Fleshy perennials , shrubs , trees or vines , terrestrial or epiphytic. Stems jointed , terete , globose , flattened, or fluted , mostly leafless and variously spiny . Leaves alternate, flat or subulate to terete, vestigial , or entirely absent; spines, glochids (easily detached, small, bristlelike spines), and flowers always arising from cushionlike, axillary areoles (modified short shoots ) . Flowers solitary, sessile, rarely clustered and stalked (in Pereskia), bisexual , rarely unisexual , actinomorphic or occasionally zygomorphic. Receptacle tube (hypanthium or perianth tube) absent or short to elongate , naked or invested with leaflike bracts, scales , areoles, and hairs , bristles , or spines; perianth segments usually numerous , in a sepaloid to petaloid series. Stamens numerous, variously inserted in throat and tube; anthers 2-loculed, dehiscing longitudinally. Ovary (pericarpel) inferior, rarely superior, 1-loculed, with 3 to many parietal (rarely basal) placentas; ovules usually numerous; style 1; stigmas 2 to numerous, papillate , rarely 2-fid. Fruit juicy or dry, naked, scaly , hairy , bristly , or spiny, indehiscent or dehiscent , when juicy then pulp derived from often deliquescent funicles (except in Pereskia) . Seeds usually numerous, often arillate or strophiolate ; embryo curved or rarely straight; endosperm present or absent; cotyledons reduced or vestigial, rarely leaflike.

About 110 genera and more than 1000 species: temperate and tropical America; Rhipsalis baccifera (J. S. Mueller) Stearn native in tropical Africa, Madagascar, Comoros, Mascarenes, and Sri Lanka; some species of other genera now extensively naturalized in the Old World through human agency; more than 60 genera and 600 species cultivated as ornamentals or hedges in China, of which four genera and seven species more or less naturalized.Zhen-yu Li & Nigel P. Taylor "Cactaceae". in Flora of China Vol. 13 Page 209. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org.

Genus Opuntia

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.

Species ca. 150 species: widespread in North America, Mexico, West Indies, South America, including the GalÃ¡pagos Islands; some species introduced to and naturalized in the Old World.

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.

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.Donald J. Pinkava "Opuntia". in Flora of North America Vol. 4 Page 93, 94, 95, 102, 123, 232, 381. Oxford University Press. Online at EFloras.org.

Physical Description

Habit: Shrub , Subshrub

Flowers: Bloom Period: March, April, May. • Flower Color: yellow

Size/Age/Growth

Size: 8-10' tall.

Habitat

Typically found at an altitude of 0 to 2,077 meters (0 to 6,814 feet).Mean = 1,276.620 meters (4,188.386 feet), Standard Deviation = 540.760 based on 40 observations. Altitude information for each observation from British Oceanographic Data Centre.

Biology

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Reproduction

Duration: Perennial

Growth

Culture: Space 6-8' apart.

Sunlight: Sun Exposure: Full Sun .

Moisture: Drought Tolerance: High

Temperature: Cold Hardiness: 9b, 10a, 10b, 11. (map)

Taxonomy

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Domain: Eukaryota () - Whittaker & Margulis,1978
- Kingdom: Plantae () - Haeckel, 1866 - Plants
  - Subkingdom: Viridaeplantae () - Cavalier-Smith, 1981
    - Phylum: Tracheophyta () - Sinnott, 1935 Ex Cavalier-Smith, 1998 - Vascular Plants
      - Subphylum: Euphyllophytina ()
        Infraphylum: Radiatopses () - Kenrick & Crane, 1997
        Class: Magnoliopsida () - Brongniart, 1843 - Dicotyledons
        Subclass: Caryophyllidae () - Takhtajan, 1967
        Superorder: Caryophyllanae () - Takhtajan, 1967
        Order: Caryophyllales () - Perleb, 1826
        Suborder: Portulacineae ()
        Family: Cactaceae () - Durande, 1782, Nom. Cons. - Cactus Family
        Subfamily: Opuntioideae ()
        Tribe: Opuntieae ()
        Genus: Opuntia () - Miller, Gard. Dict. Abr., ed. 4. vol. 2. 1754. - Pricklypear, nopal [origin uncertain; possibly based on name of Greek town (Opus perhaps) where a cactus-like plant grew]
        Specific epithet: leucotricha - DC.
        Botanical name: - Opuntia leucotricha DC.

Notes

Name Status: Accepted Name . Latest taxonomic scrutiny: 15-Mar-2000

Place of publication : Mém. Mus. Hist. Nat. 17:119. 1828

Name verified on 01-Jul-1999 by ARS Systematic Botanists. Last updated: 29-Aug-2003

Similar Species

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Members of the genus Opuntia

There are approximately 1498 species in this genus. Here are just 100 of them:

Bibliography

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Anderson, E. F. 2001. The cactus family. (Cact Fam) 505.
Benson, L. 1982. The cacti of the United States and Canada. (Cact US Can)
IPGRI. New World Fruits Database - on-line resource. (New World Fruits)
.Li Zhenyu. 1999. Cactaceae. In: Ku Tsuechih, ed., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 52(1): 272-285.
Grant, V. and K. A. Grant. 1979. Systematics of the Opuntia phaeacantha group in Texas. Bot. Gaz. 140: 199-207.
Parfitt, B. D. and M. A. Baker. 1993. Opuntia. In: J. C. Hickman, ed. 1993. The Jepson Manual. Higher Plants of California. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London. Pp. 452-457.
Philbrick, R. N. 1963. Biosystematic studies of two Pacific coast opuntias. Ph.D. thesis. Cornell University.
Pinkava, D. J. 2003. Cactaceae cactus family: Part 6. J. Arizona-Nevada Acad. Sci. 35: 137-150.

More Info

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Notes

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Contributors

Bisby, F.A., Y.R. Roskov, M.A. Ruggiero, T.M. Orrell, L.E. Paglinawan, P.W. Brewer, N. Bailly, J. van Hertum, eds (2007). Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of Life: 2007 Annual Checklist. Species 2000: Reading, U.K.
Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Accessed November 26, 2007. http://www.gbif.org Mediated distribution data from 4 providers.
MBLWHOI Library: Universal Biological Index and Organizer. uBio.org accessed July 17, 2008.
USDA, ARS, National Genetic Resources Program. Germplasm Resources Information Network - (GRIN) [Online Database]. National Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, Maryland. URL (April 30, 2008)

Data Sources

Accessed through GBIF Data Portal November 26, 2007:

USDA PLANTS, USDA PLANTS Database

Identifiers

Biodiversity Heritage Library NamebankID: 2646179
Catalogue of Life Accepted Name Code: ITS-19715
Global Biodiversity Information Facility Taxonkey: 13730055
Globally Unique Identifier: urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:136745-1
GRIN Nomen Number: 413967

Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) Taxonomic Serial Number (TSN): 19715
Natural Heritage Network Species Identifier: PDCAC0D0Q0
U.S.D.A. Plant Symbol: OPLE2
Zipcode Zoo Species Identifier: 52614

Opuntia leucotricha

Common Names

Description

Family Cactaceae

Genus Opuntia

Physical Description

Size/Age/Growth

Habitat

Biology

Reproduction

Growth

Taxonomy

Notes

Similar Species

Members of the genus Opuntia

Bibliography

More Info

Notes

Contributors

Data Sources

Identifiers

Footnotes