Prickly Pear Cactus

About the Prickly Pear Cactus

The prickly pear is as Texan as it gets, literally: the genus Opuntia is the official state plant of Texas. Its flat green pads armor themselves with long spines and nearly invisible hair-like glochids, and in spring the plant crowns itself with silky yellow blossoms.

By late summer the pads are studded with magenta fruits called tunas, a feast for deer, javelinas, birds, and people. Jelly made from prickly pear fruit is a borderland tradition, and the young pads, nopalitos, are a vegetable staple in Mexican kitchens.

This fruit-heavy plant was photographed near Frijole Ranch in Guadalupe Mountains National Park on an August evening.