Flower. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: RJ & FJ Richardson, Anakie, Vic

Flowers. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: RJ & FJ Richardson, Anakie, Vic

Fruit. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: RJ & FJ Richardson, Anakie, Vic

Shrub. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: RJ & FJ Richardson, Anakie, Vic

Common Name

Drooping Tree-pear, Drooping Pear, Smooth Tree -pear, Drooping Prickly-pear, Prickly-pear, Barbary Fig

Family

Cactaceae

Notes

Introduced bushy or treelike plant to 7m tall, sometimes with a woody trunk.  Spines on branches, flower bases, and fruit.  Succulent branches.  Leaves 0.2-0.3cm long, cylindrical or cone-shaped, soon shed. Flowers yellow with reddish markings on the undersides, and many 'petals', borne singly along the margins of the stem segments.  Fruit red to reddish purple.  A weed of national significance.  Noxious weed in all of NSW.  Declared plant in SA.  Noxious weed Vic.

Description (as Opuntia vulgaris) in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 504

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Opuntia~monacantha

Weeds of Australia Biosecurity Queensland Edition description:  http://keyserver.lucidcentral.org/weeds/data/03030800-0b07-490a-8d04-0605030c0f01/media/Html/Opuntia_monacantha.htm