Prickly pear flower interior

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The prickly pear, Opuntia engelmannii, is far and away the most common cactus in central Texas, and its flowers are among the most attractive we have. As you’ve been reading in these pages, by the middle of April this year our prickly pear flowers in Austin were beginning to open in various locations, but the one shown here was among the few in my neighborhood on April 15 that had opened wide enough for me to look down into and photograph its interior. The red surrounding the center of the flower leads me to believe this cactus was Opuntia engelmannii var. engelmannii (there’s also a var. lindheimeri).

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman