Opuntioideae
Sign in to saveOpuntioideae is a subfamily of the cactus family, Cactaceae. It contains 15 genera divided into five tribes. The subfamily encompasses roughly 220–250 species, and is geographically distributed throughout the New World from Canada, to Argentina. Members of this subfamily have diverse habits, including small geophytes, hemispherical cushions, shrubs, trees, and columnar cacti consisting of indeterminate branches or determinate terete or spherical segments.
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6 sectionsContents
- Description
- Taxonomy
- Tribes and genera
- Intergeneric hybrids
- See also
- References
Opuntioideae is a subfamily of the cactus family, Cactaceae. It contains 15 genera divided into five tribes. The subfamily encompasses roughly 220–250 species, and is geographically distributed throughout the New World from Canada, to Argentina. Members of this subfamily have diverse habits, including small geophytes, hemispherical cushions, shrubs, trees, and columnar cacti consisting of indeterminate branches or determinate terete or spherical segments.
==Description== Synapomorphies of Opuntioideae include small deciduous, barbed spines called glochids born on areoles and a bony aril surrounding a campylotropous ovule (inverted and curved, such that the micropyle almost meets the funiculus). Other prominent morphological characters for this subfamily are presence of cylindrical, caducous leaves that tend to be shed by maturity and the sectioning of the stem into joints or pads known as cladodes.