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Opuntia

Mill. (1754)

This name is accepted

Kingdom: Viridiplantae Phylum: Magnoliophyta Class/Clade: Eudicot-CoreEudicot Order: Caryophyllales Family: Cactaceae Genus: Opuntia

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Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Highly specialized, usually succulent shrubs or trees, low and prostrate or erect, sometimes with a well–defined trunk, usually spiny, the spines variable in number, size, arrangement, and color, produced from specialized axillary structures (areoles).

Stems: Stems jointed, laterally compressed or flattened (hawaiian taxa) or short–cylindrical. areoles bearing hairs, glochids (barbed bristles), and usually spines.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves reduced, caducous. Blades subulate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers solitary. Flowers bisexual (perfect), diurnal, very rarely unisexual, actinomorphic or occasionally zygomorphic. Perianth parts numerous, yellow to reddish orange, red, or even purple, distinct, gradually grading from sepaloid to petaloid, usually not sharply differentiated into 2 series; receptacle tube very short, naked or with scales and areoles bearing hairs, bristles, or spines. 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. Stamens numerous, inserted in the throat of the receptacle tube. Ovary inferior, with areoles bearing hairs, glochids, and often spines.

Fruit: Berries juicy; fleshy; or dry; indehiscent. Seeds numerous; white to brown; flattened; enclosed in a hard; bony aril.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range:

Historical Distribution

Images

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Uses and Culture

USES

Natural History

Island Status

Dispersal Agents


Pollinators

Specimens

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Bibliography

Name Published In: Gard. Dict. Abr. ed. 4: s.p. (1754)

Occurrences

SNo. Scientific Name Scientific Name Authorship Locality Habitat Basis of Record Recorded By Record Number Island Source Date
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