Opuntiads of the USA

Opuntia mojavensis Engelm. & J.M. Bigelow 1856

These plants shown on this page have some similarities with the original description of O. mojavensis. However, they also they also have much in ommon with the O. dulcis-like plants of Mt. Charleston and with O. dulcis. Peraps plants on this page are nothing more than a variant of O. dulcis.

Confusion: There is some confusion about the true identity of O. mojavensis, and there are at least two different descriptions in the literature: 1) description of O. mojavensis No. 1, and 2) description No. 2. In addition to different descriptions it seems that the original plant was documented by an incomplete herbarium specimen.

O. dulcis, the O. dulcis-like plants of Mt. Charleston, NV, and the plants shown on this page (from Mt. Potosi, NV), are all spreading and woody. They are not O. phaeacantha.

The plants on this page are common along Highway 160, just west of the Mt. Potosi summit. The location is about 30 miles west-southwest of downtown Las Vegas, NV, about 5,500 ft. elevation. The plants are easily found on both sides of the highway a mile or two west of the summit, especially in rocky locations adjacent to the road. Depending upon precise location they may occur with pinyon pine (pinon), junipers, Echinocereus engelmannii, O. polyacantha, O. gilvescens, O. phaecantha, and Agave utahensis ssp. nevadensis.

The main vegetative difference between the plants on this page and the O. dulcis-like plants of Mt. Charleston is that the plants depicted on this page typically produce an exeptionally long and flat, pale spine from pad surface areoles. Such spines are typical on the uppper 1/2 or 2/3 of the cladode surface (in addition to a shorter deflexed spine).

A second population of (apparently) identical plants was found in Spring Mountain Ranch State Park of Nevada. The second population is a few miles east of the plants that are found near the summit of Mt. Potosi (on Hwy. 160) and occurs at a lower elevation (perhaps 3,000 or 3,500 ft).

The following plants were photographed in Spring Mountain Ranch State Park (a few miles west of Las Vegas, NV) in the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. The plants were photographed in early May, 2005.