Opuntia cochenillifera (L.) Mill.

 
  • Family : CACTACEAE
    (CACTUS FAMILY)
  • Family (as per The Plant List) : Cactaceae
  • Species : Opuntia cochenillifera
  • Species Name (as per The Plant List) : Nopalea cochenillifera (L.) Salm-Dyck
  • Common name : Cocheneal Plant
  • Key identification features : A shrubby, much branched cactus, up to 4 m high. Leaves are small, soon falling off. Areoles are distinct, small, roundish without spines. Flowers develop singly along the upper margins of joints, up to 7 cm long with erect crimson petals. Stamens are longer than petals. Fruit is rarely formed.
  • Habit : Shrub
  • Flower, Fruit : April-June
  • Native : Mexico
  • Comments : Occasional as an escape in higher hill ranges of Eastern Ghats.
  • Conservation Status : Not Evaluated (NE)
  • Distribution Locality : Sesachalam Hills (Chittoor district), Kadapa district, Nallamalai Hills (Kurnool district), Krishna district (Andhra Pradesh State)
  • World Distribution : Mexico; Introduced in tropics
  • Literature : Pullaiah et al., 2007 - Flora of Eastern Ghats Vol. 3
  • Citation : Sankara Rao, K., Arun Singh R., Deepak Kumar, Raja K Swamy and Navendu Page (2016). Digital Flora of Eastern Ghats. http://easternghats.ces.iisc.ernet.in/plants.php?name=Opuntia cochenillifera. Downloaded on 21 November 2024.

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Digital Flora of Eastern Ghats by Herbarium JCB is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://easternghats.ces.iisc.ernet.in.