Xerophyte

Leaves

Green, awl-shaped, 12 mm long or less, acute.

Description

CylindrSN'>16241' alt='10936'>Opuntia whipplei#SN#16242'>Cylindr[[Opuntia whippleiSN' style='border

Flowers

1-5 to 2 cm. long including the ovary. Inner perianth segments, greenish or yellowish, sometimes with reddish tips, narrowly obovate, 5-8 mm, acute, apiculate. Outer perianth segments broadly ovate, acute, or cuspidate. Ovary obconic, bearing numerous small woolly brown areoles subtended by small leaves, its glochids brown. Filaments greenish yellow; anthers yellow. Style yellow; stigma lobes greenish yellow.

Blooming Season

Spring-early summer, sometimes autumn (Mar-Aug, Oct).

Chromosome Number

2n = 22, 33, 44. It seems that O. leptocaulis is tetraploid in the Chihuahuan Desert Region and diploid, or tetraploid in the Sonoran Desert region. The general absence of fertile, intermediates (triploid 2n = 33), there would be ample justification for interpreting them as distinct species. CylindrSN'>10803' alt='7631'>Opuntia versicolor#SN#10805'>Cylindr[[Opuntia versicolorSN' style='border

Spines

Usually solitary concentrated on apical areoles of the main branches, evenly distributed on segments, at areoles of old branches 2 or 3 together, very slender, round in cross section, angular-flattened basally, erect, flexible, straight or curved, 2 to 5 cm long or less, reddish brown with with white or grey coats. Sheaths of spines closely fitting or loose and papery, gray to purple-gray with yellow to red-brown tips or yellow throughout.

Stem

Main stem (trunk) 5 to 8 cm in diameter, dull green with darker blotches below the areoles, with very slender, cylindric, ascending, hardly tuberculate branches, grey-green to purplish, 20-80 cm long, especially the fruiting ones, thickly set with short, usually spineless joints spreading nearly at right angles to the main branches, easily detached. Stem segments usually alternate, grey-green or purplish, 20-80 mm long, 3-5(-6.5) mm in diameter. Tubercles linear, drying as elongate, riblike wrinkles, 11-20(-30) mm long.

Fruits

Numerous, small, globular to obovate or even clavate, often proliferous, green, often with purple tint, becoming red or rarely yellow at maturity, 9-18(-27) mm long, 6-7(-12) mm in diameter turgid, slightly fleshy, smooth and spineless. Umbilicus 2-4 mm deep. Areoles 16-20.

Areoles

With very short white to yellow wool, becoming grey with age, broadly elliptical. Glochids yellow to reddish brown, 1-5 mm long.