About
Contact
Links
Electronic Flora of South Australia
Electronic Flora of South Australia
Census of SA Plants, Algae & Fungi
Identification tools
 

Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Cactaceae
Opuntia vulgaris

Citation: Miller, Gard. Dict. edn 8 (1768).

Synonymy: Cactus monacanthus Willd., Enum. Pl. Suppl. 33 (1813); O. monacantha (Willd.)Haw., Suppl. Pl. Succ. 81 (1819).

Common name: Drooping prickly-pear, prickly-pear, drooping tree pear, Barbary fig.

Description:
Bushy or tree-like, 2-7 m high, sometimes with a cylindrical trunk to 15 cm diam.; joints cylindrical, ovate to oblong, to 30 cm long, shiny or glossy; spines usually 1 or 2, yellowish to dark-brown, 1-3 cm long; areoles distant, glochids brown; leaves deciduous.

Flowers yellowish, with some reddening at the base of the petals, to 7 cm across.

Fruit red to reddish-purple, pear-shaped, spineless, 5 to 7 cm long, occasionally proliferous.

image of FSA1_Opuntia_vul2.jpg Opuntia vulgaris
Image source: fig. 188d in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).
image of FSA1_Opuntia_vul.jpg Opuntia vulgaris
Image source: fig 188b in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Parsons (1973) Noxious weeds of Victoria, figs 22 & 23; Graf (1963) Exotica 3:475, 481.

Distribution:    Qld; N.S.W.; Vic.   Native to Brazil and northern Argentine. Naturalised in many tropical and subtropical parts of the World.

Conservation status: naturalised

Flowering time: late spring — summer.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available


Disclaimer Copyright Disclaimer Copyright Email Contact:
State Herbarium of South Australia
Government of South Australia Government of South Australia Government of South Australia Department for Environment and Water