Flora of North America species comparison

diffuse or tuberlike.

segmented throughout or only in ultimate branches, succulent (less noticeably so in some Cylindropuntia), often woody, especially toward base, smooth or tuberculate;

areoles cushionlike, circular or nearly so (to linear), usually bearing conspicuous spines and always bearing glochids.

of brief duration, promptly deciduous, present only during initial growth of stem segments and flowers [persistent], conic or somewhat flattened, succulent.

0–5 per areole, usually in distal areoles or sometimes absent or nearly so, tan to red-brown to deep purple, aging gray;

major abaxial spines 0–1(–2), the longest spine spreading, (1.5–)2.5–6 cm;

adaxial spines usually reflexed, short to ± 1 cm;

sheaths baggy.

slender to stout (to hairlike), terete to strongly flattened, usually smooth, sometimes barbed or roughened, epidermis intact or partly to wholly separating from body of spine as sheath that hangs onto spine.

in subcircular to linear adaxial tuft, yellow to tan to brown, to 2 mm.

inner tepals bronze-red ± suffused rose, with mid stripes darker, ovate, 6–13 mm, acute-apiculate to attenuate;

filaments greenish;

anthers yellow;

style whitish or blushed with rose-pink or light green;

stigma lobes whitish.

diurnal (opening late afternoon or night in Cylindropuntia fulgida), bisexual (sometimes functionally staminate or pistillate), solitary in areoles [terminal], radially or bilaterally symmetric (flower curved and/or the ovary flattened), sessile, rotate, cup-shaped, or salverform;

flower tube epigynous, short adnate to extension of stem segment surrounding ovary;

nectary at base of style, open or sometimes covered by outgrowths of proximal portion of style base or of flower tube wall as specialized nectar chamber.

maturing tan, ellipsoid to stipitate-ellipsoid, 15–30 × 10–15 mm, dry at maturity, tuberculate, developing increasingly burlike, with many bristlelike spines;

areoles (32–)40–66, evenly spaced, woolly.

indehiscent, cylindric, ellipsoid, ovoid, or subspheric, sometimes clavate, fleshy, juicy (bleeding), or quickly drying;

perianth and contained flower parts shriveling and abscising basally as single unit including floral cup, leaving deep to almost flat scar (umbilicus) atop fruit.

pale yellow to tan-gray, angular to squarish in outline, warped, 4–4.5 × 3.5–4 mm, sides irregularly concave-convex;

girdle smooth.

0 (sterile) or 1–400+, yellowish, tan, gray, or brown, flattened to subspheric, 2–7 mm, each completely enclosed by bony funicular envelope, glabrous or sometimes pubescent, its vascular bundle forming girdle around seed, sometimes enlarged and protruding as ridge or wing.

= 22, 44.