tulip prickly pear

Photo: Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz — CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Survives zone 4 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Called tulip prickly pear for its showy, often red-centered yellow flowers; it forms large dense thickets in the wild and its purplish, pink-fleshed fruit is fleshy and seedy. ⚠ Glochids.

Hardiness

Zone 4–9

Habit

Groundcover

Edible part

Seed, Fruit

Ripens

Late summer–autumn

Mature size

Sprawling clumps 0.5–1 m tall, spreading 1–3 m

Light

Full sun (open-ground desert/glade)

Soil pH

6.5–8.0 (neutral–alkaline, sharp drainage)

Environment

Temperate

Native range

Southwestern US (Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, Trans-Pecos Texas), the lower Great Plains, and northern Mexico.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

2–3 yrs

Growth speed

Moderate — several new pads a season once established, eventually forming thickets to 2.4 m

Spacing

240 cm (94 in) apart — about 5.8 m² (62 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Flattened green pads bearing two spine types — long spines to 2 in (5 cm), gray to brown or yellowish, sometimes deflexed, plus dense clusters of minute glochids at the base of each spine cluster.

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

Fleshy, purplish (sometimes red), flattened fruit up to about 2.25 in (5.7 cm) long, with pink, seedy flesh.

Propagation

Propagated readily from pad cuttings, calloused before rooting in gritty, fast-draining soil.

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.