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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Cactaceae
Opuntia robusta

Citation: H.L. Wendl. in Pfeiffer, Enum. Cact. 165 (1837).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Camuesa, wheel cactus, wheel pear.

Description:
Erect shrub to small tree to 6 m high; joints flattened, orbicular or nearly so, blue-glaucous, to 30 cm long; areoles remote; spines 8-12, stout, set in brownish-yellow glochids, white with a yellowish or brownish base, to 5 cm long; leaves deciduous.

Flowers often unisexual, yellow, c. 5 cm across.

Fruits 7-9 cm, long, red or purplish-red.

image of FSA1_Opuntia_rob.jpg Opuntia robusta
Image source: fig 188g in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Parsons (1973) Noxious weeds of Victoria, figs 18 & 19; Graf (1978) Tropica, p. 238.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: FR, EA, EP, NL, MU, YP, SL.   Vic.   Native to Mexico. Some forms have fewer and shorter spines.

Conservation status: naturalised

Flowering time: late spring — summer.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available


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