Photo: Jessie Eastland — CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Survives zone 7 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
Unlike most prickly pears, beavertail cactus fruit is dry and mealy rather than juicy and sweet, so it is far less commonly eaten than tunas from species like O. ficus-indica or O. engelmannii — some sources describe it as barely utilized as food at all. ⚠ Glochids — this species has no true spines, but its areoles carry an especially dense covering of fine, sharp glochids that penetrate skin easily.
- Hardiness
- Zone 7–9
- Habit
- Groundcover
- Edible part
- Seed, Fruit
- Ripens
- Late summer–autumn
- Mature size
- Low clumps 20–60 cm tall, spreading 1–2 m; excellent in containers
- Light
- Full sun (open-ground desert/glade)
- Soil pH
- 6.5–8.0 (neutral–alkaline, sharp drainage)
- Environment
- Desert
- Native range
- Mojave and Sonoran deserts of the southwestern US (California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah) and adjacent northwestern Mexico.
- Status
- Both wild and cultivated
- Years to fruit
- 2–3 yrs
- Growth speed
- Slow
- Spacing
- 90 cm (35 in) apart — about 1.2 per m² (1.1 per 10 sq ft)
- Leaf shape
- Pads are spineless but glochid-covered, blue-green to yellow-green often with a maroon-purple tint, spatula- to inversely-egg-shaped, to about 14 in (35 cm) long and 6.4 in (16 cm) wide; plants reach only about 16 in (40 cm) tall.
- Root system
- Shallow and fibrous, with most of the root mass in the top 15 cm and spreading as far as 2.5 m from the plant within two seasons — a mat built to catch light rain before it evaporates rather than to reach deep water. It needs no soil depth, but it does need sharp drainage: standing wet in winter kills far more plants than cold does.
- Fruit description
- Spherical to inverted-egg-shaped, tan, and dry at maturity — noticeably drier and mealier than the juicy fruit typical of other prickly pears.
- Propagation
- Propagated from pad cuttings, calloused before rooting in gritty, well-drained soil; less commonly grown from seed.
- Pollination
- Self-fertile
The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.
Growing guide
Fertilizing. Extremely lean, gravelly or rocky soil suits it best — this species is adapted to nutrient-poor desert pavement and does not want rich soil or regular feeding.
How it spreads. Branches from the base into low, sprawling to ascending clusters of pads rather than forming tall stands.
Growing tips. Cold hardiness varies considerably by variety and provenance: some populations (e.g. var. heilii, ssp. whitneyana) are hardy to about -30°F (USDA zone 4), while others are limited to zone 7–8. Needs full sun and very sharp drainage — wet winter soil is far more likely to kill it than cold alone. Handle only with tools, never bare hands, because of the dense glochid cover.
Grow journal
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