{"id":4531,"date":"2025-11-18T22:22:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T04:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/?p=4531"},"modified":"2025-11-18T22:22:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T04:22:22","slug":"opuntia-dulcis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/opuntia-dulcis\/","title":{"rendered":"Opuntia dulcis"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Unusual Opuntia dulcis with Rust-colored Spines, Mt. Charleston, NV.)<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n

Opuntia dulcis has been described as a variety of O. phaeacantha. O. dulcis is a larger plant, reaching about 2 ft. Sometimes side branches arise from prostrate branches. Immature O. dulcis may overlap in size with O. phaeacantha, but O. phaeacantha is a prostrate plant. O. dulcis resembles O. engelmannii in some ways, but it does not become as erect or as tall as the Engelmann prickly pear. The spines may be arranged as in O. engelmannii, but those of O. dulcis are more slender.<\/p>\n

The Details<\/h3>\n

An early account of O. dulcis describes the fruit as sweet. The inner tepals are bright red at their bases, though the red may be pale. There are often 2\u20134 chalk-white, tan, or brown spines. These spines are more slender than those of O. engelmannii, but they are not weak.<\/p>\n

O. dulcis grows as far north as Albuquerque, NM, and at least as high as 1,500 m. Plants from cold-winter areas are very cold-hardy.<\/p>\n

Additional Reading:\u00a0Opuntia dulcis (Weedin and Powell)<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Opuntia <\/a>
Opuntia phaeacantha, for comparison <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Opuntia <\/a>
Opuntia dulcis, Artesia, NM <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Opuntia <\/a>
Opuntia dulcis, Mt. Charleston, NV <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Opuntia <\/a>
Opuntia dulcis, Nancy Hussey <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Opuntia <\/a>
Opuntia dulcis, garden plant <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Unusual Opuntia dulcis with Rust-colored Spines, Mt. Charleston, NV.) Introduction Opuntia dulcis has been described as a variety of O. phaeacantha. O. dulcis is a larger plant, reaching about 2 ft. Sometimes side branches arise from prostrate branches. Immature O. dulcis may overlap in size with O. phaeacantha, but O. phaeacantha is a prostrate plant. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[31,33],"class_list":["post-4531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opuntiads","tag-deserts","tag-the-west"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/opuntia-dulcis-alamo1a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4531"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6868,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4531\/revisions\/6868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}