Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Caryophyllales > Cactaceae > Opuntia > Opuntia fragilis

Opuntia fragilis (jumping cactus; little pricklypear cactus; little pricklypear; brittle pricklypear; brittle cactus; fragile cactus)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Opuntia fragilis, known by the common names brittle pricklypear and little prickly pear, is a prickly pear cactus native to much of North America. It occurs in several Canadian provinces. It is known from farther north than any other cactus, occurring at as close as 8°south of the Arctic Circle, (58°N latitude) in Alberta. There is an isolated and possibly genetically unique population in Eastern Ontario known as the "Kaladar cactus".
View Wikipedia Record: Opuntia fragilis

Attributes

Edible [1]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [1]  Hermaphrodite
Hazards [1]  The plant has numerous minutely barbed glochids (hairs) that are easily dislodged when the plant is touched and they then become stuck to the skin where they are difficult to see and remove. They can cause considerable discomfort;
Leaf Type [1]  Evergreen
Lifespan [1]  Perennial
Pollinators [1]  Insects, Lepidoptera
Structure [2]  Shrub
Usage [1]  The following notes are for O. ficus indica. They almost certainly also apply to this species; A gum is obtained from the stem. It is used as a masticatory or mixed with oil to make candles; The juice of the boiled stem segments is very sticky. It is added to plaster, whitewash etc to make it adhere better to walls;
Height [1]  3.937 inches (0.1 m)
Width [1]  12 inches (0.3 m)
View Plants For A Future Record : Opuntia fragilis

Protected Areas

Predators

Thomomys bottae (Botta's pocket gopher)[3]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 2USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 3Thomomys bottae, Cheri A. Jones and Colleen N. Baxter, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 742, pp. 1–14 (2004)
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0