Good Book on Opuntias???

[Tom45]

I have Anderson's Cactus Family but was disappointed on the amount of coverage on Opuntia. Anyone know of a better one that might also have info on hybrids as well?

I'm old fashioned and still prefer a good book to peruse rather than surf the web.

[Buck Hemenway]

The New Cactus Lexicon has a good spread on the opuntiods and all of the reclassifications of the genera. Pictures of almost all. It's not cheap, but it is our current bible.

[CoronaCactus]

They aren't just about Opuntia, but have a lot of great info about North American species.

L. Benson; Cacti of California and Cacti of Arizona
Powell and Weedin; Cacti of the Trans-Pecos and Cacti of Texas a field guide.

These offer more than just a description and distribution location like The Cactus Family. Good photos of every species, distribution maps, flowers, fruits, roots etc. I use these a lot!

[Peterthecactusguy]

Darryl,
cool I have wanted to get the Cacti of Arizona book from Benson for awhile but it's out of print and hard to find, and expensive. At the U.ofA books site it's $40 dollars, which I dont have hehehe

[peterb]

The taxonomy in all of the above mentioned references is of course problematic. I know the NCL treatment of Opuntia is hotly disputed, just like everything else about the NCL. I do agree with Darryl that the Powell and Weedin book is simply excellent, but it only covers Texas. The taxonomy in Benson's works has been shot full of holes by nearly every botanist to come along since, haha.

I wish some of the current Opuntia gurus could get the funding to do a massive volume dedicated to the Opuntiads. Currently, one of the best references is Joe Shaw's Opuntiads website, http://opuntiads.com/, and personal communication with Opuntia freaks.

peterb

[CoronaCactus]

Hahaha, true, Benson's taxonomy has taken a serious beating, but the info about the plants is still intact

I'd be the first in line for a full coverage Opuntia book set! That would be uber awesome!

There are also some good books for the South American types, but i can'tthink of a single title right now Unfotunately, i have not seen any for sale here. (Rainbow Gardens Books?) Maybe one of our UK/South America members can fill in the blanks.

[daiv]

I have heard rumor that Dave Ferguson is working on such a book. At least U.S. species coverage.

Tom - is your interest in Opuntiads in general or North American Opuntias specifically?

Here is a good resource that Phil pointed out a while back:

http://www.cactiguide.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11147

As for TCF vs. NCL, don't forget you can compare the taxonomy of TCF and NCL against the CactiGuide.com default and between the two publications here:

http://www.cactiguide.com/compare_publications/

Note: In the NCL, you can see that many names are not recognized. The text includes the reasoning behind it and so actually having the book is certainly better. Here is an example of one such note:

O. ellisiana Grif 1910/RMBG 21: 170, pl. 25. T: cult. US, Texas, Corpus Christi, 1907, Griffiths 8626.<br>
-A spineless cultivar which has been confused with O. ficus-indica, but has small fruits with fewer areolese crowded near the apex (Pinkava 2003/FNA 4: 143, accepting it as a species).

This is one big advantage with the NCL. It is often helpful to know why a species is not listed instead of no listing. Anderson doesn't usually explain why certain taxa are not listed.