Prickly Pear with Fruit
by Karyn Robinson
Title
Prickly Pear with Fruit
Artist
Karyn Robinson
Medium
Painting - Acrylic
Description
Karyn Robinson, Gilbert, Arizona
Loved for its blossoms in the spring and its fruit in the summer, the prickly pear is a much loved Sonoran desert plant. This one is painted in turquoise and purple and is set against a bold yellow background.
Prickly pears typically grow with flat, rounded cladodes (also called platyclades) armed with two kinds of spines; large, smooth, fixed spines and small, hairlike prickles called glochids, that easily penetrate skin and detach from the plant. Many types of prickly pears grow into dense, tangled structures.
Like all true cactus species, prickly pears are native only to the Americas, but they have been introduced to other parts of the globe. Prickly pear species are found in abundance in Mexico, especially in the central and western regions, and in the Caribbean islands (West Indies). In the United States, prickly pears are native to many areas of the arid Western United States, including the lower elevations of the Rocky Mountains, where species such as Opuntia phaeacantha and Opuntia polyacantha become dominant, and especially in the desert Southwest. Prickly pear cactus is also native to the dry sandhills and sand dunes of the East Coast from Florida to Connecticut/Long Island (Opuntia humifusa). Further north, Opuntia occurs in isolated areas from the southern Great Lakes to southern Ontario. O. humifusa is also a prominent feature of the flora at Illinois Beach State Park, in Winthrop Harbor, Illinois, north of Chicago, and of Indiana Dunes State Park southeast of Chicago.
In the Galapagos Islands, six different species are found: O. echios, O. galapageia, O. helleri, O. insularis, O. saxicola, and O. megasperma. These species are divided into 14 different varieties; most of these are confined to one or a few islands. For this reason, they have been described as "an excellent example of adaptive radiation".[3] On the whole, islands with tall, trunked varieties have giant tortoises, and islands lacking tortoises have low or prostrate forms of Opuntia.
The first introduction of prickly pears into Australia can be definitely ascribed to Governor Philip and the earliest colonists in 1788. Brought from Brazil to Sydney, they remained in Sydney, New South Wales, where they were rediscovered in a farmer's garden in 1839. The farmer's wife gave cuttings to neighbors and friends, who planted it not only in their gardens, but also as hedgerows.[4] So began the Australian invasion that caused major ecological damage in the eastern states. They are also found in the Mediterranean region of Northern Africa, especially in Tunisia, where they grow all over the countryside, and southern Europe, especially on Malta, where they grow all over the islands, in the south-east of Spain, and can be found in enormous numbers in parts of South Africa, where it was introduced from South America.
Opuntia species are the most cold-tolerant of the lowland cacti, extending into western and southern Canada; one subspecies, O. fragilis var. fragilis, has been found growing along the Beatton River in central British Columbia, southwest of Cecil Lake at 56� 17� N latitude and 120� 39� W longitude.[5] Prickly pears also produce a fruit, commonly eaten in Mexico, known as tuna; it also is used to make aguas frescas. The fruit can be red, wine-red, green, or yellow-orange.
Charles Darwin was the first to note that these cacti have thigmotactic anthers: when the anthers are touched, they curl over, depositing their pollen. This movement can be seen by gently poking the anthers of an open Opuntia flower. The same trait has evolved convergently in other cacti (e.g. Lophophora).
Uploaded
September 3rd, 2012
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