Opuntiads of the USA

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Opuntia Species

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"spineless" Opuntia orbiulata Salm-Dyck ex Pfeiff. (= O. dillei Griffiths)

O. dillei has been lumped into various other species (including O. engelmanii). The authors view this as a reflection of the continuing confusion surrounding O. engelmannii. It seems that any large Opuntia for which a clear understanding is unavailable is tucked into O. engelmanii by someone at one time or another. Lumping O. dillei into O. engelmannii creates total chaos because O. engelmanii is often construed to be a form of O. pheacantha which in turn is confused with various other species.

Another source of confusion concerns O. dillei and O. dillenii; their names are similar but O. dillenii is a valid species found in Florida. Information on O. dillenii has been provided elsewhere on this Web site by by Danny Green. Herein, O. dillei is considered to be a spineless variant of O. orbiculata and not a separate taxon. The images on this page show a spinless O. orbiculata plant at the Rio Grande Botanic Garden in Albuquerque, NM in very early spring 2006; the plant fits the description of O. dillei that was provided by Griffiths. Possibly, one reason that O. dillei is not well understood is because O. orbiculata is poorly understood and studied, even though it grows from south-central Oklahoma into New Mexico and through much of the western one-third of Texas.

O. orbiculata (and the O. dillei forms) can be very handsome plants. They are very cold hardy for large cacti. Plants in north Texas occur naturally in USDA Climate Zone 7, and those in Oklahoma experience even more cold.

Spinless Opuntia orbiculata, Rio Grande Botanic Garden, Albuquerque, NM