Habit: Shrub or small tree, erect to decumbent, many-branched. Stem: regularly segmented, segments generally < 50 cm, < 5 cm diam, cylindric, fleshy, glabrous; ribs generally 0; tubercles generally elongate. Leaf: conic to cylindric, deciduous. Spines: 1--many per areole, < 2 mm diam, generally needle-shaped, smooth, straight, tip smooth or barbed, epidermis separating as a papery sheath; central spines generally not distinct from radial spines; glochids generally numerous in each areole. Flower: lateral to terminal, from distal portion of areole, 1.8--8 cm diam; perianth yellow, yellow-green, orange-yellow, to bronze, pink, or red; ovary glabrous, spines 0--many, glochids many in each areole, scales 0. Fruit: indehiscent; spheric or cylindric to obconic, dry or fleshy to leathery in age, green to dark yellow, glabrous, spiny or spines 0. Seed: 1.9--7 mm, flattened to +- spheric, surface smooth to angular, within an aril, bony and +- white when dry.
Species In Genus: 36 species: America. Etymology: (Cylindric Opuntia) Note: Hybridization common. Young buds of some species used for food, many species for ornament. Cylindropuntia chuckwallensis newly described, added as native.
Jepson eFlora Author: Marc Baker, Bruce D. Parfitt & Jon Rebman
Reference: Baker & Cloud-Hughes 2014 Madroño 61:231--243; Mayer et al. 2011 Madroño 58:106--112
Unabridged Reference: Pinkava 2002 Succ Pl Res 6:59--98; Rebman & Pinkava 2001 Florida Entomol 84:474--483
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)
Key to Cylindropuntia

List of species Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa var. acanthocarpa Cylindropuntia bernardina Cylindropuntia bigelovii Cylindropuntia californica var. californica Cylindropuntia chuckwallensis Cylindropuntia echinocarpa Cylindropuntia fosbergii Cylindropuntia ganderi Cylindropuntia munzii Cylindropuntia prolifera Cylindropuntia ramosissima Cylindropuntia wolfii

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