Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Opuntia ficus-indica
Common name
Indian Fig, Spineless Cactus, Prickly Pear
Family
Cactaceae
Where found
Near cultivated plants. Dumped garden waste. Sydney area. Doubtfully naturalised in the ACT. Occasionally elsewhere.
Notes
Introduced shrublike or treelike plant to 7 m high. Trunk often well-developed. Spineless, or up to about 9 spines per cluster, on stem segments, flower bases, and fruit. Fleshy stem segments and fruit. Stem segments very flattened, green, blue-green or glaucous, 25–50 cm long, 10–20 cm wide. Leaves shed early, to 0.3 cm long, spirally arranged. Flowers 70-100 mm in diameter, with many 'petals', yellow or orange-yellow, tinged pink, and many 'sepals', yellow with reddish or green stripes down the middle. Flowers single along the margins of the stem segments. Flowers late spring–summer. Fruit yellow, orange, red, or purple, 5–9 cm long, juicy, edible. Grown commercially for its edible fruit.
A Weed of National Significance. General Biosecurity Duty all NSW.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Opuntia~ficus-indica (accessed 12 January, 2021)
This identification key and fact sheets are available as a free mobile application:
