Opuntia spp.

[Auxin]

I had opportunity to make a lap through the local botanical gardens and found some sort of Opuntia covered in fruit, rather than tracking down the master gardener and shoving a pad up his bum for planting an Opuntia in my desert I snagged two fruit

I didnt have a camera with me in the gardens. Pads were large, 6-7" wide, 7-9" tall. The areoles on the pads bore multiple 1-2" weathered looking spines in each areole along with glochids. Pads were medium green. The fruit were universally purple, many had detatched from the cactus on their own, several pads had half a dozen fruit on top, fruit 3.5 cm wide x 5.5 cm long, fruit areoles bear glochids but never spines, 22-28 areoles per fruit. No flowers observed.

Based on descriptions of major species and cultivars I narrowed my guesses down to O. engelmannii var. engelmannii, O. littoralis (the fruit I got are longer than littoralis pics I'm seeing, pads were larger too), O. ×occidentalis, or O. ×vaseyi ... just my guesses tho, do I sound close?

[Evil Genius]

Hi Auxin, that sounds very good :-) I dont know many Opuntias but i´ll check out my books and see if i can help you a little bit. bye Eg

[Auxin]

This should help, I made it back to the gardens today

Plant:

Cut open fruit (it smells like watermellon rind, kind of tastes like it too but sweet, when washed and dried the seed are tan and 3mm wide):

I'm going to compare the performance of hypocotyl grafts using Opuntia ficus-indica stock and this Opuntia stock with Ariocarpus fissuratus seedling scions

That was on my way to a hardware store and they had a sale on unlabeled cacti so I got two

Some mostrose species they glued a plastic flower to to be funny, a Cereus species perhaps? :

And this one looks like Echinocactus, maby Echinocactus grusonii?

Edited September 8, 2007 by Auxin

[Auxin]

No clues?

My guess on the monster is Cereus validus f. monstrose

...next time I start a thread on Opuntia I'll name it "Peyote Penis Plant!!!!!!!" so folks will look

[tonic]

Hey Auxin, looks like you have an Opuntia spp. LOL[i'm not really up on the cholla IDs], anyway the monster looks a lot like a Cereus peruvianus [monstrose] fairy castles, though recently I have noticed there is quite a few different monster Cereus sp. with varying names.

The Echinocactus?? Does look like a grusonii, though to me looks a lot like a Notocactus sp. so not 'o' cactus at all, just joking. Hope that helps a bit.

[Auxin]

Good catch on Notocactus, theres definite resemblance to N. schumannianus, for instance. I hope I dont have to wait for a flower to find out

I cant wrap my head around the monsters, so many forms for each species Gleefully I followed the C. peruvianus path and found pics that look identical Like this.

Thanks man

[apothecary]

rather than tracking down the master gardener and shoving a pad up his bum for planting an Opuntia in my desert I snagged two fruit

Always thinkin' 'bout yer stomach!

[mu!]

The guy who planted it might know what species it is. Then you can shove the pad up his ass and tell us the exact name of it

[tonic]

No worries Auxin, I just typed out an informative post and lost it all!!! Not going to bother typing it all again, but I will add that the 'cholla' in your pics looks to me to be Opuntia azurea.

Edited October 24, 2007 by Phosphene_Dream

[JustAskSally]

Dunno if anyone has already said this

And im, if anything, a noob to this site

but judging by the large spine size with new spike growth with the orange tinge

looks like a Opuntia engelmannii (prob var?) to me?

And also looks bloody tasty!!

Edited October 24, 2007 by JustAskSally

[tonic]

Noob or not, I think your ID is correct.

[PD.]

also looks bloody tasty!!

They sure are.

[mu!]

Whats the stuff taste like?

[Auxin]

I got a peek at a dichotomous key and a big cactus book and I'm 95% convinced its O. engelmannii. If the things still there in the spring I'll try to catch a flower. Theres too damn many Opuntias

Fruit tastes sorta like the watermelon flesh right next to the rind. Itd be good for coloring sweet bread or something too.

[Monk]

Yeah, and if you're wandering throught the desert eating nopales (opuntia pads sliced like green beans) and need a nice fermented gut-rot, those could be the perfect source of sugar and yeast. Water-kefir is supposed to have been derived from the lacto/yeast cultures on an Opuntia, isn't it? Sorry, the ever brewing monk got a little side tracked there ....