• Prickly-pear is a native evergreen succulent found in coastal dunes, sandy riverbeds, and pine forests.
• It is a fast-growing, shrubby cactus with heights of up to 20 feet (ca. 6 m).
• Its short trunk may reach 8 inches (ca. 20 cm) in diameter. It grows best in areas that have lots of sun, light, and minimal water.
• In hot, arid climates it can be grown outdoors in a bed or container.
• Great for xeriscaping and easy to transplant. Seeds must ripen for a year+ before germination occurs.
• it has Edible fruits and leaf pads. Prickly spines and irritating hairs.
• O. mesacantha is a prostrate plant that may branch in all directions to 1 m across.
• Cladodes may be spined or unspined and are smooth in outline, obovate or rotund, occasionally elliptical.
• Spines are stout (0.95-1.3 mm in diameter).
• Flowers are pure yellow with no red. Fruits are reddish at maturity. Seeds are 5.0-5.9 mm long.
• O. mesacantha and O. lata are difficult to differentiate in the field, but Adanick et al., 2019 developed a method to measure stomates in the field and differentiate the two taxa easily.
• Like other eastern prickly pears, O. mesacantha colonizes sandy or rocky areas that become dry between rains.
• Opuntiamesacantha is tetraploid.

the prickly pear is Drought Tolerant, so it can resist that challenge

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