Opuntia basilaris is a familiar plant in the California deserts. Its common name is the Beavertail Cactus or, sometimes, Beavertail Prickly Pear.
It’s probably the most commonly found cactus, with incredible staying power to survive the harsh desert climate, while offering a beautiful display of vivid pink spring flowers. Its brilliant pink flowers can be seen from the roadside from spring to early summer, so it’s relatively easy to find because they stand out so well. These photographs were taken in Joshua Tree National Park, but we found them flowering beautifully in the Mojave Desert, Anza Borrego, East Mojave, Death Valley, and other parks and nature reserves. In fact, we found it in all of the Southern California deserts as well as the Colorado Desert and Northern Mexico.
Here are some closeups of this beautiful yet hardy desert native plant.
Its spines are not so much thick spines but small, barbed, hair-like bristles, called glocids, that are particularly fine, and thus, odious if they attach to your clothing or skin. Each cluster or tuft may contain
hundreds of glocids that readily separate from the plant to penetrate your skin and are very difficult to remove, so be especially careful to admire this plant from a safe distance.
Once embedded in your skin, they cause irritation that can last for many hours. Unlike “jumping” cholla, they do not “attack”; that is, appear to leap onto your shoes, clothing, or skin, but once you actually touch them, dozens of barbed glocids may embed in a single spot.
Opuntia basilaris is a relatively small desert specimen, but some clusters that are more mature can be several feet across with scores of flattened pads that have a distinctly blue (and sometimes grayish) cast to them.
Once you spot them on the bleak desert floor (unless it is springtime and the desert is covered with wildflowers), you will never forget how beautiful and striking they are in such a harsh landscape.
They are not tricky to grow in your own desertscape garden, but handling them is the trick; that is, avoiding accumulating barbs in your clothing, gloves, or skin is difficult. If you purchase one, wrap the pad in many layers of newspaper to handle it, place it in the ground and gently gather the dirt beneath the pads to secure it, all the while avoiding touching anything but the newspaper. Once in place, water it in and stay a good distance away to admire it. This would be a good defensive plant to put around a home or under a window. Anyone who steps on it will not do so again.
