Opuntia basilaris
Beavertail cactus
Family CactaceaeAlso called Beavertail prickly pear
About
Beavertail cactus is a low prickly pear of the southwestern US deserts with blue-grey, usually spineless pads and pink to rose flowers. It was an important food for the Cahuilla people.
Care at a glance
- Pet safety
- Listed as non-toxic to dogs, cats and horses, but spines and glochids cause injury. General guidance for the genus
- People
- Barbed glochids easily penetrate and irritate skin; wear gloves when handling.
- Light
- Full sun (6+ hours of direct sun); high light indoors. General guidance for the genus
- Water
- Very drought tolerant; avoid soggy soil, which causes root rot. General guidance for the genus
- Soil
- Very free-draining sand or gravel.
- Propagation
- A single detached pad roots readily to form a new plant. General guidance for the genus
- Mature size
- 7–40 cm tall, spreading into clumps.
“General guidance for the genus” marks advice sourced for the genus as a whole rather than this species.
Field notes
Morphology
Grows 7–40 cm tall and may have hundreds of flat, fleshy, blue-grey pads 5–21 cm long. Pads usually lack spines but carry many tiny barbed glochids that easily pierce skin. Flowers are pink to rose, from spring to early summer.
Distribution & habitat
Mojave, Anza-Borrego and Colorado Deserts, the Colorado Plateau, Grand Canyon and lower Colorado River region, into Utah, Nevada, Arizona and northwestern Sonora, Mexico. Grows in chaparral, desert and grassland on sand, gravel, cobble or boulders.
History & etymology
Described from reports of a 35th-parallel railroad survey. The Cahuilla steamed the buds and ground the seeds into mush; the Diegueño ate the dried fruit, and the Shoshone used the inner mucilage as a poultice for cuts.
Habitat
- Altitude
- Not recorded
- Altitude class
- —
- Native to
- United States, Mexico
- IUCN status
- Least concern
Cultivation
- Difficulty
- easy
Text adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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