Opuntia chlorotica (Dollar-Joint Prickly-Pear)

Overview

[ Back to top ]

Interesting Facts

[ Back to top ]

Common Names

[ Back to top ]

Click on the language to view common names.

Common Names in English:

Dollar-Joint Prickly-Pear, Clockface Prickly-Pear, Dollarjoint Pricklypear, Flapjack Prickly-Pear, Pancake Pear Cactus, Pancake Prickly Pear, Pancake Prickly-Pear, Pancake Pricklypear, Pancake-Pear

Common Names in Spanish:

Nopal Verdoso

Common Names in unspecified:

Dollarjoint Pricklypear, Pancake Pricklypear

Description

[ Back to top ]

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.[1]

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.[2]

Physical Description

Species Opuntia chlorotica

Trees or shrubs, erect , 2-2.5 m , with spiny , well-defined trunk to 30 cm diam. Stem segments not disarticulating , blue-green, flattened, obovate to circular, 13-21 × 11.5-19 cm, nearly smooth , glabrous ; areoles 7-10 per diagonal row across midstem segment, subcircular to elliptic , with basal ridge , 3-6 × 2.5-4 mm; wool tan, aging grayish white. Spines absent or usually in distal areoles to evenly distributed over entire stem segment, yellow, aging red-brown to blackish, straight or weakly curved , ± acicular , deflexed , or some erect in marginal areoles; larger spines 0-7 per areole, terete or basally flattened, 25-45 mm, usually accompanied by few straight to wavy bristle-spines. Glochids crowded in narrow crescent along adaxial margins , longer toward base of areole margins, subapical tuft absent or poorly developed, yellow, aging reddish brown, to 14 mm. Flowers: inner tepals yellow (sometimes with reddish blush near base), abaxially reddish streaked along midveins , broadly spatulate-apiculate, 18-30 mm; filaments white to yellow; anthers ; style and stigma lobes white, yellowish, or pale green. Fruits red, barrel-shaped, 30-60 × 18-40 mm, fleshy (often mummifying), glabrous, spineless; umbilicus 6-9 mm deep; areoles 40-68. Seeds yellowish, 3.5-4 × 3-3.5 mm, 1.5-1.8 mm thick, reniform to subcircular, flattened, often warped; girdle protruding 0.1-0.5 mm. 2n = 22. [source]

Opuntia chlorotica hybridizes with O. santa-rita in southeastern Arizona and with the hexaploid O. phaeacantha forming the tetraploid O. ×curvispina in areas of Arizona, California, and Nevada. [source]

Habit: Shrub , Subshrub

Flowers: Bloom Period: February, March, April, May, June, July. • Flower Color: red-orange, yellow

Size/Age/Growth

Size: 36-48" tall.

Habitat

Desert grasslands, woodlands, chaparral , desert flats, rocky ledges, hills , canyons ; 600-2400 m [3].

Biology

[ Back to top ]

Reproduction

Duration: Perennial

Growth

Culture: Space 4-6' apart.

Soil: Minimum pH: 6.1 • Maximum pH: 7.8

Sunlight: Sun Exposure: Full Sun .

Moisture: Drought Tolerance: High

Temperature: Cold Hardiness: 8b, 9a, 9b, 10a, 10b, 11. (map)

Taxonomy

[ Back to top ]

Domain: Eukaryota () - Whittaker & Margulis,1978 - eukaryotes
- 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: Spermatopsida () - Brongniart, 1843
        Subclass: Caryophyllidae () - Takhtajan, 1967
        Superorder: Caryophyllanae () - Takhtajan, 1967
        Order: Caryophyllales () - Perleb, 1826
        Suborder: Portulacineae ()
        Family: Cactaceae () - Durande, 1782 ex A.L. de Jussieu, 1789, nom. cons. - cactus
        Subfamily: Opuntioideae ()
        Genus: Opuntia () - P. Miller, 1754 - Pricklypear, nopal [origin uncertain; possibly based on name of Greek town (Opus perhaps) where a cactus-like plant grew]
        Specific epithet: chlorotica - Engelm. & Bigelow
        Botanical name: - Opuntia chlorotica Engelm. & Bigelow

Notes

Name Status: Accepted Name .

Last scrutiny: 15-Mar-2000

Similar Species

[ Back to top ]

Members of the genus Opuntia

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 389 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus. Here are just 100 of them:

More Info

[ Back to top ]

Search for Pictures: images.google.com
Search for Scholarly Articles: Google Scholar
Search using Scientific Name and Vernacular Names: All the Web | AltaVista Canada | AltaVista | Excite | Google | HotBot | Lycos
Search using Specialized Databases: GenBank | Medline | Scirus | CISTI/CAL | Agricola Periodicals | Agricola Books

Notes

[ Back to top ]

Contributors

Brands, S.J. (comp.) 1989-present. The Taxonomicon. Universal Taxonomic Services, Zwaag, The Netherlands. Accessed January 9, 2012.

Data Sources

Accessed through GBIF Data Portal February 01, 2008:

Missouri Botanical Garden, Missouri Botanical Garden
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Arizona State University Vascular Plant Herbarium
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, The Deaver Herbarium, Northern Arizona University
USDA PLANTS, USDA PLANTS Database
Utah State University, USU-UTC Specimen Database
Utah Valley State College
, Utah Valley State College Herbarium

Identifiers

Biodiversity Heritage Library NamebankID: 2646167
Catalogue of Life Accepted Name Code: ITS-19697
GRIN Nomen Number: 414880
Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) Taxonomic Serial Number (TSN): 19697
Natural Heritage Network Species Identifier: PDCAC0D090
U.S.D.A. Plant Symbol: OPCH
Zipcode Zoo Species Identifier: 52584

Footnotes

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. [back]
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. [back]
"Opuntia chlorotica". in Flora of North America Vol. 4 Page 126, 128, 133. Oxford University Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]

Opuntia chlorotica

Overview

Interesting Facts

Common Names

Description

Family Cactaceae

Genus Opuntia

Physical Description

Species Opuntia chlorotica

Size/Age/Growth

Habitat

Biology

Reproduction

Growth

Taxonomy

Notes

Similar Species

Members of the genus Opuntia

More Info

Further Reading

Notes

Contributors

Data Sources

Identifiers

Footnotes