What kind of opuntia are these?

A. Dean Stock · Post by **A. Dean Stock** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 2:39 am

Your plants could belong to the O. humifusa complex and still have red centers in the flowers. The recently recognized O. cespitosa is included within O. humifusa by most earlier workers ( Majure and Ervin 2008). It is a tetraploid member of the complex found in the eastern U.S. Opuntia humifusa (other than O. cespitosa) has concolor yellow flowers while O. macrorhiza generally has red centered flowers. There appears to be some introgression between O. macrorhiza and O humifusa in parts of their range. I suspect that your plant is O. cespitosa (with red centered flowers) or possibly O. macrorhiza or a hybrid involving those species. It is not O. phaeacantha or O. macrocentra. Dr. Lucas Majure is the leading authority on this group. A recent paper of his in Comparative Cytogenetics 6:53-77 2012) sheds a lot of light on the Humifusa Complex.
Dean

peterb · Post by **peterb** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 3:16 pm

Interesting! I had never heard of O. cespitosa. The above pictured plant doesn't bear any resemblance to the humifusa with which I am familiar.

peterb

Post by **daiv** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 4:44 pm

Yes, never heard of O. humifusa with other than yellow flowers. So good to know the name O. cespitosa. However, just to be clear, the pictures of the plant in flower are not the same as the plant in the beginning of the thread. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

peterb · Post by **peterb** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 5:00 pm

Okay, I see the flower pics now, had missed those. So, some confusion over the original pics and the flower pics. These are different plants, right? Anyway, the flower pics are macrorhiza, IMO. The original pic in the first post is neither macrorhiza nor humifusa, IMO. Too much structure to the pads, different areoles, different spine characters. There are no similar naturally occurring Opuntia in the Eastern US, except for perhaps Florida, but my understanding is most of those more erect, shrub-like Opuntia would not survive up north. Since they are cultivated, they could be anything. Post pics again when they are in flower? Maybe that will help narrow it down.

peterb

Peterthecactusguy · Post by **Peterthecactusguy** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 7:49 pm

next time I go to PA I will go when there isn't a freaking foot and a half of snow falling every other day.. And I will take some pictures of the Opuntia growing there. I remember having to pull out glochids AND spines when I had my first experience with an Opuntia.. I remembered thinking that the spines hurt and the little things were annoying lol (give me a break I didnt know anything about cacti then, except that I had a Mammillaria in my room that lived for many years until I over watered it

)

mjazz · Post by **mjazz** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 11:25 pm

daiv wrote:Yes, never heard of O. humifusa with other than yellow flowers. So good to know the name O. cespitosa. However, just to be clear, the pictures of the plant in flower are not the same as the plant in the beginning of the thread. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks, Daiv, no you're not wrong. I was just trying to think of how to phrase what you just said. I had posted the flower pictures to show that what I thought were O. humifusa could have the orange throat.
The plants in the first two pictures don't seem to be as spiny as what I believe to be O. phaeacantha- the third picture down, with the fruits. (hope I don't confuse things further)
It's good to know that the others may be macrorhiza, when all along I thought they were "eastern prickly pear" (isn't nomenclature grand?)

.
Peter, I remember delivering a truck in the 70's, as part of a convoy, alongside a range or ridge in PA. Right after one of the guys said on the CB "it looks like we're not going to get that snow they were talking about", snow started coming over the ridge, and within ten minutes I swear we must have had two feet of snow. Famous last words! But I'd like to get a hold of some of those native PA cactus.

Peterthecactusguy · Post by **Peterthecactusguy** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 7:35 am

lol I remember I was away at college in Western PA, and it was supposed to be a blizzard. IT actually got too cold to snow and so I was like ah it's no big deal. My dad came to pick me up for the holidays or something and when we left it was cloudy and slightly windy. Well by the time we made it to the mountains it was snowing like crazy on the other side. IT took use 6 hours to get home instead of 3. I will try and get some when I go next summer or whenever. I will see if they are still there, who knows they might have been chopped down. I sorta seem to remember them having spines and glochids.. I was maybe 12 or so so maybe in my imagination they have huge spines!

fanaticactus · Post by **fanaticactus** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 1:00 pm

Peter, just out of interest--friends from Stroudsburg brought me a whole bunch of uprooted O. humifusa from their area. I can't swear that they were wild, but I'm pretty sure they weren't from their garden. I mixed them in with a couple of small starter plants I bought at a nursery and they are the ones in my CH garden here in VT on the shores of L. Champlain. I manage to get a few photos of them each Spring & Summer and post them in my "Members' Topics" thread for each year.

Peterthecactusguy · Post by **Peterthecactusguy** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 9:39 pm

I'll have to take a peak through your members topic. I might even have seen pictures of them before. I have some O. humifusa from various sources and they sure seem to hate the desert. They get confused and stay small and stunted. If I forget to water them they look like they are shriveling up for winter, however they aren't dead yet. I am going to try and put some in the shade and see if they like it better the sun might be too strong for them here.

And thanks. I will check it out. As you know I love Opuntia, even if I had a terrible experience with them when I was little. Running into cacti is NEVER fun tho

mjazz · Post by **mjazz** » Fri Nov 02, 2012 12:42 pm

Does anyone want some seeds from the mystery winter hardy opuntia?

Peterthecactusguy · Post by **Peterthecactusguy** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 8:22 am

I guess I could try and grow some. I have gotten some native ones to grow in my yard, and even an O. ficus-indica that sprouted as a volunteer

mjazz · Post by **mjazz** » Sat Nov 03, 2012 8:59 pm

Let me know how many you think would be enough.
I even went to the mall the other morning at 8 am to collect some of the fruits from the original plants- I hate to see them go to waste- felt a little silly but no one seemed to take notice. There's more but I would need tongs to get at them.
You like opuntia, I have 5 or 6 of these: http://www.cactiguide.com/forum/viewtop ... 82#p124182" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
They're getting too big to keep lugging in and out every year and I don't have a lot of room in the house anyway. Maybe in the spring we can find a shipper to get them to you.

mjazz · Post by **mjazz** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 4:55 pm

Here's an update about the winter hardy mystery cactus, now that the cold weather has set in.

: DSC00176.JPG (132.04 KiB) Viewed 850 times

For comparison, I took some pictures of the O. humifusa (macrorhiza?) Way different.

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: DSC00178.JPG (135.74 KiB) Viewed 850 times

Note the different colors of the fruit in the prostrate cacti. The two pictures are of different clumps. Some might say it's due to soil conditions, but I think it might be a genetic difference.
I'll have plenty of seeds but I have to get them before the squirrels do.

Peterthecactusguy · Post by **Peterthecactusguy** » Tue Nov 06, 2012 9:11 am

mjazz wrote:Let me know how many you think would be enough.
I even went to the mall the other morning at 8 am to collect some of the fruits from the original plants- I hate to see them go to waste- felt a little silly but no one seemed to take notice. There's more but I would need tongs to get at them.
You like opuntia, I have 5 or 6 of these: http://www.cactiguide.com/forum/viewtop ... 82#p124182" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
They're getting too big to keep lugging in and out every year and I don't have a lot of room in the house anyway. Maybe in the spring we can find a shipper to get them to you.

go to the post office and get one of those flat rate boxes. It's cheap and you can ship it to my PO box

as for the seeds I dunno maybe one or two of them .

mjazz · Post by **mjazz** » Tue Nov 06, 2012 4:40 pm

go to the post office and get one of those flat rate boxes. It's cheap and you can ship it to my PO box

I dunno- here's one of the smaller ones

: DSC00179.JPG (46.5 KiB) Viewed 835 times

Seriously though, I do have a bunch of smaller rooted cuttings I could send.

I grew this from seeds from a supermarket prickly pear:

: DSC00180.JPG (29.72 KiB) Viewed 835 times

I saw a show with iguanas eating the pears off of what looked like trees with pads for leaves, so I thought this might grow into one.
Wondering if it's trying to grow a trunk?
Got a few smaller ones of those, too.

What kind of opuntia are these?

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