Opuntia stricta
Erect prickly pear
Family CactaceaeAlso called Nopal estricto
About
Erect prickly pear is a large, upright cactus of subtropical and tropical coasts of the Americas, bearing lemon-yellow flowers and purplish-red fruit.
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 lodge in skin and irritate; wear gloves when handling. General guidance for the genus
- 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
- Sandy, well-drained soil.
- Propagation
- A single detached pad roots readily to form a new plant. General guidance for the genus
- Mature size
- Up to 2 m tall.
“General guidance for the genus” marks advice sourced for the genus as a whole rather than this species.
Field notes
Morphology
A shrubby, erect plant up to 2 m tall. Blue-green, hairless pads are oval to obovate and 25–64 cm long. Widely spaced brownish areoles carry yellow glochids 2–6 mm long and, mainly near edges and tips, one or more yellowish flattened spines. Lemon-yellow flowers appear in spring and summer.
Distribution & habitat
Coastal beach scrub and sandy coasts of the southeastern US from South Carolina to Texas, Bermuda, the Caribbean, eastern Mexico, Central America, Venezuela and Ecuador. A major understorey plant of Bahamian dry forests.
Ecology
Quickly colonises hot, open places with sandy soils.
History & etymology
First described as Cactus strictus by Adrian Hardy Haworth in 1803, and moved by him to Opuntia in 1812.
Habitat
- Altitude
- Not recorded
- Altitude class
- —
- Native to
- United States, Bermuda, Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands
- IUCN status
- Least concern
Cultivation
- Difficulty
- easy
Text adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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