Flora of North America species comparison

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Cylindropuntia arbuscula

Arizona pencil cholla, pencil cholla
Habit Trees or shrubs, densely branched, 0.5–3 m. Stem segments green, sometimes purple tinged, 6–10.5 × 0.5–1.3 cm; tubercles narrowly elongate, appearing as wrinkles when dry, 1–2 cm; areoles circular, 2–3 mm in diam.; wool tan to brown, aging gray to black.
Spines

0–2(–3) per areole, sparsely distributed along stem, usually deflexed, pale yellow or red-brown aging black, stout, the longest 0.8–3.5(–5) cm;

sheaths loose fitting, yellowish brown.
Glochids

in adaxial tuft and marginal, encircling areole, pale yellow.
Flowers

inner tepals green- or orange-bronze, spatulate, 17–20 mm, apiculate;

filaments dark green-bronze;

anthers yellow;

style whitish basally to light orange apically;

stigma lobes very pale green.
Fruits

green, becoming yellowish apically, sometimes tinged red to purplish at areoles, commonly sterile, then narrow, tuberculate, to 2.5 cm, fertile ones stipitate, obconic, 20–50 × 15–35 mm, fleshy, becoming smooth, spineless;

umbilicus 3–4 mm deep;

areoles 15–17(–34).
Seeds

pale yellow, angularly circular to oblong, thick, 3–5 mm diam., lumpy;

girdle smooth, broad, not protruding.
2n

= 66.

Cylindropuntia arbuscula
Phenology Flowering spring (Apr–Jun).
Habitat Sonoran Desert flats, bajadas, desert scrub
Elevation 300-1000 m (1000-3300 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AZ; Mexico (Sonora)
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Cylindropuntia arbuscula forms hybrids with C. leptocaulis in south-central Arizona; those hybrids have narrow, obscurely tuberculate stems and reddish fruits nearly the size of those of C. arbuscula and chromosome number of 2n = 55. Hybrids between C. arbuscula and C. spinosior [= C. ×neoarbuscula (Griffiths) F. M. Knuth] have large green fruits, which often split open, and on stem segments distal areoles that usually bear three or four spines to 2.5 cm. Hybrids between C. arbuscula and C. versicolor [= C. ×vivipara (Rose) F. M. Knuth] have large green fruits, which often split open, and distal stem segment areoles that bear one or two spines to 1.5 cm.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 4, p. 106.
Parent taxa Cactaceae > subfam. Opuntioideae > Cylindropuntia
Sibling taxa
C. abyssi, C. acanthocarpa, C. bigelovii, C. californica, C. davisii, C. echinocarpa, C. fulgida, C. ganderi, C. imbricata, C. kleiniae, C. leptocaulis, C. munzii, C. prolifera, C. ramosissima, C. spinosior, C. tunicata, C. versicolor, C. whipplei, C. wolfii, C. ×kelvinensis, C. ×tetracantha
Synonyms Opuntia arbuscula
Name authority (Engelmann) F. M. Knuth: in C. Backeberg and F. M. Knuth, Kaktus-ABC, 123. (1935)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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