The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

black-spine pricklypear, nopal violaceo, purple pricklypear

Habit Shrubs, erect to decumbent, to 1 m. Stem segments not easily detached, purple (particularly under stress) to green with purple near areoles and margins of stem segment, flattened, broadly obovate to subcircular, thickish, 7–20 × 6–18 cm; areoles 6–8(–10) per diagonal row across midstem segment, elliptic to circular, 3–7 × 2.5–5 mm; wool tan to whitish, aging black.
Spines

0 or 1–15+ per areole, few and at distal areoles or many and on most areoles, usually erect to spreading, appearing unruly, sometimes deflexed, straight or curving, acicular, often flexible, subterete to flattened basally;

longer ones reddish brown to ± black (rarely yellow to red in w Texas), or partly to wholly white, 30–120(–170) mm; reflexed spine rarely present, 1 in some areoles, short, whitish.

Glochids

dense in crescent at adaxial edge of areole and well-developed subapical tuft, reddish yellow, aging brown, 2–3(–6) mm.

Flowers

inner tepals yellow with red basal portions, obovate-apiculate, 25–40 mm;

filaments and anthers yellowish;

style cream;

stigma lobes green.

Fruits

red to purplish, obovoid to barrel-shaped, 25–40 × 20–23 mm, fleshy or ± juicy, glabrous, spineless;

umbilicus 8–10 mm deep;

areoles 22–44.

Seeds

yellowish, suborbicular to reniform, angled, 5–7 × 3.5–5 mm, sides flattened;

girdle protruding 0.8–1.2 mm.

2n

= 22, 44.

Opuntia macrocentra

Phenology Flowering spring (Mar–Jun).
Habitat Desert uplands, grasslands, oak woodlands, sandy desert flats, rocky hills and valleys
Elevation 900-1600 m (3000-5200 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AZ; NM; TX; Mexico (Chihuahua, Coahuila, Sonora)
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Opuntia macrocentra var. minor is represented by relatively short and compact shrubs with a glochid pattern of a dense crescent in the adaxial edge of the areoles like the species and a much taller tuft of spreading glochids. This variety, which grows along the western side of the Rio Grande in Big Bend, Texas, appears best interpreted as a tetraploid hybrid between tetraploid putative parents, Opuntia macrocentra and O. tortispina.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 4.
Parent taxa Cactaceae > subfam. Opuntioideae > Opuntia
Sibling taxa
O. aciculata, O. atrispina, O. aurea, O. aureispina, O. basilaris, O. chisosensis, O. chlorotica, O. cubensis, O. ellisiana, O. engelmannii, O. ficus-indica, O. fragilis, O. humifusa, O. littoralis, O. macrorhiza, O. microdasys, O. oricola, O. phaeacantha, O. pinkavae, O. polyacantha, O. pottsii, O. pusilla, O. rufida, O. santa-rita, O. stricta, O. strigil, O. tortispina, O. triacantha, O. ×columbiana, O. ×curvispina, O. ×occidentalis, O. ×spinosibacca, O. ×vaseyi
Synonyms O. violacea, O. violacea var. castetteri, O. violacea var. macrocentra
Name authority Engelmann: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 3: 292. (1856)
Web links