Flora of North America species comparison

diffuse or tuberlike.

segments not disarticulating, dark or bright shiny green, wrinkling when stressed, circular to broadly oblong to obovate, 5–17.5 × 4–12 cm, fleshy, usually tuberculate, glabrous;

areoles 4–6 per diagonal row across midstem segment, oval to circular, 2–4 mm diam., not raised, sometimes somewhat sunken;

wool tan to brown.

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.

often absent or 1–2(–3) per areole, spreading, whitish to brownish, terete, straight, and usually stout, 25–60 mm; occasionally also 1 deflexed spine present.

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 dense crescent of adaxial edge of areole and in dense tuft overtopping crescent in age, yellow to red-brown, to 4 mm.

inner tepals pale to bright yellow throughout, 20–30 mm diam.;

filaments yellow to orange;

anthers pale yellow to cream;

style and stigma lobes white.

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.

greenish, tardily becoming apricot to brownish red, elongate, 30–50 × 12–20 mm, fleshy, tapering at base;

pulp green and sour, becoming reddish and sweet under ideal conditions;

areoles 10–18.

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.

tan, 3.5–4.5 mm diam., thickish;

girdle protruding to 1 mm.

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.