| Description: |
Opuntia bentonii Griffiths, Rep. (Annual) Missouri Bot. Gard. 22:25. 1911. TYPE: FLORIDA: McClenny (Macclenny), cultivated plant, 26 Apr 1906, Harmon Benton s.n.; type specimen collected from cultivated plant (SAG), 24 Apr 1910, David Griffiths 8374 (HOLOTYPE: US- 2607635 [barcode 00115793]). Note.— The voucher is notated“ HOLOTYPE,” but there is no indication when or by whom.The voucher was reannotated O.stricta by Lyman Benson in 1958 at the Herbarium of Pomona College via the Consortium of California Herbaria (2024) (Fig.1). Distribution.— “… Fernandina, Florida, to the mouth of the Brazos [River, Texas], always in cultivation in the eastern portion of this range and native in southwestern Louisiana and Texas ” (Crook & Mottram 1995). DESCRIPTION Tight or irregular shrubs, 1.5–2 m across, 1–1.5(2) m tall; juvenile plants with semi-vertical or horizontal branches from which cladodes grow up and out, forming shrubs (Fig. 2). Cladodes subcircular, broadly ovate, or oval, 17–18 cm wide, to 28 cm long, never narrowly obovate; vascular system between areoles visible on first-year cladodes. Areoles widely spaced, elliptical, 3–4 per diagonal row, attended by light yellowish glochids initially less than 0.3 cm long in an adaxial crescent, often scattered throughout, in age lengthening to 1 cm and turning brown. Spines 0–2(3), 1.5–2.5 cm long, yellow, becoming white, gray, or black with age, porrect or gently deflexed, slender, terete, annulate with alternating shades of yellow, sometimes modestly twisted; occasionally shorter spines present, these semi-erect or gently reflexed; spines often absent from areoles; overall, plants modestly spiny in appearance (Griffiths 1911; Small 1933) (Fig. 3). Flowers yellow, attractive, 9–10 cm across, petaloid tepals broadly ovate, margins irregular; style greenish-white, stigma yellow or pale yellowgreen (never green); flower buds green, pointed sepaloid tepals ovate, acute, pointing toward the apex, unopened petaloid tepals rhomboid. Fruits copious, 3–4.5 cm long, egg-shaped ... |