Prickly Pear

Prickly Pear, or INDIAN FIG (Opuntia), a genus of plants of the natural order Cactaceæ (q.v.), having a fleshy stem, generally formed of compressed articulations; leafless, except that the youngest shoots produce small cylindrical leaves which soon fall off; generally covered with clusters of strong hairs or of prickles; the flowers springing from among the clusters of prickles, or from the margin or summit of the articulations, solitary, or corymboso-paniculate, generally yellow, rarely white or red; the fruit resembling a fig or pear, with clusters of prickles on the skin, mucilaginous, generally eatable—that of some species pleasant, that of others insipid. The prickles of some species are so strong, and their stems grow up in such number and strength, that they are used for hedge-plants in warm countries. The Common Prickly Pear or Indian Fig (O. vulgaris), a native of Virginia and more southern parts of North America, is now naturalised in many parts of the south of Europe and north of Africa, and in other warm countries. It grows well on the barest rocks, and spreads over expanses of volcanic sand and ashes too arid for almost any other plant. It is of humble growth; its fruit oval, rather larger than a hen's egg, yellow, and tinged with purple, the pulp red or purple, juicy, and pleasantly combining sweetness with acidity. It is extensively used in many countries as an article of food. In the south of England the prickly pear lives in the open air, and occasionally ripens its fruit. In America it is cultivated considerably to the north of its native region. Lime rubbish is often mixed with the soil in which it is to be planted. The fruit is imported into Britain, to a small extent, from the Mediterranean. The Dwarf Prickly Pear (O. nana), very similar, but smaller, and having prostrate stems, is naturalised in Europe as far north as the sunny slopes of the Tyrol. The Tuna (O. tuna), much used in some parts of the West Indies as a hedge-plant, and also valuable as one of the species which afford food to the cochineal insect, yields a pleasant fruit. It has red flowers, with long stamens, which display a remarkable irritability.