General: Cactus Apple Pricklypear (Opuntia engelmannii) is a mound-shaped cactus with spreading lower stems and more upright upper stems. The stem segments are flat pads that are 10-12 inches long and oval in shape. All areoles have 3-12 spines, the longest of which are about 2-inches long, more-or-less flat, and yellow. Flowers yellow. Fruit is a fleshy "cactus apple" with a red interior.

Pricklypear can be difficult to identify; sometimes it is better to just call it a pricklypear and let it go at that.

Cactus Apple Pricklypear is locally common (not found everywhere, but they can be abundant where it occurs) component of vegetation communities on well-drained sandy, gravelly, and rocky soils along washes and on upper bajadas and moderate slopes into the lower mountains in the Lower Sonoran (Creosote-Bursage Flats) and Upper Sonoran (Mojave Desert Scrub and Pinyon-Juniper Woodland) life zones.

Around Las Vegas, this species is most easily seen south of town in places like Spirit Mountain Wilderness Area and Bridge Mountain Wilderness Area (Christmas Tree Pass), the South McCullough Wilderness Area, and over in Arizona.

Family: Cactus (Cactaceae).

Other Names:

Plant Form: mounded, spreading upright shrub.

Height: Usually to about thigh high (to 4 feet).

Trunk: None.

Stems: Divided into segments; flat and broad (pancake shaped), oval, to about 1-foot long.

Stem Surface: Smooth.

Spines: Usually 3 to 12 spines per areole. Larger spines flattened, yellowish.

Glochids: Present, usually dense along the upper edge of the pads, but few on the sides of the pads.

Flowers: Blooms during early summer. Inflorescence: flowers solitary along upper edge of pads (set atop developing fruit). Flowers: yellow to orange; to about 1-1/2-inches diameter; filaments white; style white, stigma greenish.

Fruit: "Cactus apple." Fruit juicy, purplish exterior and interior; 1 to 2-1/2-inches long. Spines absent, but glochids present.

Seeds: Small, to about 6 mm.

Habitat: Dry, well-drained sandy, gravelly, and rocky soils on upper bajadas and moderate slopes in the lower mountains.

Distribution: California to Texas and south into Mexico.

Elevation: About sea level to 5,000 feet.

Comments: Pricklypear species hybridize, sometimes making identification difficult. This confusion is evidenced by the plethora of scientific names assigned to populations of this species.