Opuntia leucotricha

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

Taxonomy

[ Back to top ]

Domain: Eukaryota Whittaker & Margulis,1978 - eukaryotes
- Kingdom: Plantae Haeckel, 1866 - Plants
  - Subkingdom: Viridaeplantae Cavalier-Smith, 1981 - Green Plants
    - Phylum: Tracheophyta Sinnott, 1935 ex Cavalier-Smith, 1998 - Vascular Plants
      - Subphylum: Spermatophytina (auct.) Cavalier-Smith, 1998 - Seed Plants
        Infraphylum: Angiospermae auct.
        Class: Magnoliopsida Brongniart, 1843 - Dicotyledons
        Subclass: Caryophyllidae Takhtajan, 1967
        Superorder: Caryophyllanae Takhtajan, 1967
        Order: Caryophyllales Perleb, 1826
        Suborder: Portulacineae
        Family: Cactaceae (kak-TAY-see-ay) Durande, 1782, nom. cons. - Cactus Family
        Subfamily: Opuntioideae
        Tribe: Opuntieae
        Genus: Opuntia (op-UN-shee-uh) 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

Physical 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]

Habit: Shrub, Subshrub

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

Distribution

[ Back to top ]

Range and Population

North America

Native: Queretaro.

Reproduction

[ Back to top ]

Duration: Perennial

Growth

[ Back to top ]

Culture: Space 6-8' apart.

Sunlight: Sun Exposure: Full Sun.

Moisture: Drought Tolerance: High

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

Similar Species

[ Back to top ]

Members of the genus Opuntia:

Bibliography

[ Back to top ]

.Li Zhenyu. 1999. Cactaceae. In: Ku Tsuechih, ed., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 52(1): 272-285.
Anderson, E. F. 2001. The cactus family. (Cact Fam) 505.
Benson, L. 1982. The cacti of the United States and Canada. (Cact US Can)
Grant, V. and K. A. Grant. 1979. Systematics of the Opuntia phaeacantha group in Texas. Bot. Gaz. 140: 199-207.
IPGRI. New World Fruits Database - on-line resource. (New World Fruits)
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

[ 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/CA L | Agricola Periodicals | Agricola Books
Translate this page using Google: Arabic | Chinese | Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Japanese | Korean | Português

Notes

[ Back to top ]

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.
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:

Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) Taxonomic Serial Number (TSN): 19715
Global Biodiversity Information Facility Taxonkey: 13730055
Globally Unique Identifier: urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:136745-1
Natural Heritage Network Species Identifier: PDCAC0D0Q0
U.S.D.A. Plant Symbol: OPLE2
Zipcode Zoo Species Identifier: 52614

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.
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.

Keep Exploring...

[ Back to top ]

What is this? Click to find out...

Last Revised: May 05, 2008