South African National Biodiversity Institute, Compton Herbarium, Cape Town (SAM)
Collection
Flora of Southern Africa
Resource Type
Reference Sources
Entry From
Flora of South Africa, (2003) Author: Dr J.P. Roux
Names
Opuntia dillenii [family CACTACEAE]
Common names
Cactus dillenii Ker-Gawl. in Bot. Reg. 3: t.255 (1818).
Information
Low spreading bushes forming clumps or more upright, up to 2 m tall. Joints flattened, pale green, narrowly elliptic, c. 20 cm long and 10 cm broad; areoles large, 10-12 mm in diam., densely fringed with bristles up to 8 mm long and with white curly wool in the centre; spines up to 8 in each areole, spreading, varying in length, the longest up to c. 5 cm long, straight or slightly curved, acicular or somewhat flatÂtened, yellow, indistinctly banded when young, becoming brown with age, occasionally absent. Flowers with a slender curved hypanthium, narrowed in lower half; petaloid segments a dirty greenish yellow. Fruit globose, purple, c. 5 cm long, narrowed and curved towards the base, with few areoles; seed c. 5 mm in diam., brownish.
Habitat
Common names: Geeldoringturksvy, Pypsteelturksvy, Pipestem Prickly Pear.
Use
7. Opuntia dillenii (Ker-Gawl.) Haw., Suppl. PI. Succ 79 (1819); Britton & Rose, The Cactaceae 1: 162 (1919). Burtt Davy, Fl. Transv. 1: 236 (1926); Phill. in Fmg. S. Afr. 15: 119 (1940). Type: Based on an illustration by Dillenius.
Range
This species from Central America is now widely distributed through cultivation in wanner parts of the Old World. It is recorded as a pest in southern India and Australia. It is fairly common around Pietermaritzburg in Natal, where it is known as the Pipestem Prickly Pear or Pypsteel-turksvy, because of the curved fruit resembling a tobacco pipe.
