Cylindropuntia leptocaulis(DC.) F.M.Knuth

Christmas cholla

WFO wfo-0000632398 Accepted WFO 2026-06 6 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–f

Cylindropuntia leptocaulis, photographed by CK2AZ
fig. a CK2AZ, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205352653
Cylindropuntia leptocaulis, photographed by Reid Hardin
fig. b Reid Hardin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200860025
Cylindropuntia leptocaulis, photographed by Precambrian Rabbit
fig. c Precambrian Rabbit, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200857451
Cylindropuntia leptocaulis, photographed by CK2AZ
fig. d CK2AZ, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199843912
Cylindropuntia leptocaulis, photographed by Reid Hardin
fig. e Reid Hardin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199871134
Cylindropuntia leptocaulis, photographed by Reid Hardin
fig. f Reid Hardin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196078053

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 571 observations

Peak flowering in May, from 571 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 36 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Cylindropuntia brittonii (J.G.Ortega) Backeb.
  • Cylindropuntia leptocaulis f. longispina (Engelm.) Guiggi
  • Cylindropuntia leptocaulis var. badia (A.Berger) F.M.Knuth
  • Cylindropuntia leptocaulis var. brevispina (Engelm.) F.M.Knuth
  • Cylindropuntia leptocaulis var. glauca Backeb.
  • Cylindropuntia leptocaulis var. longispina (Engelm.) F.M.Knuth
  • Cylindropuntia leptocaulis var. pleuriseta (A.Berger) F.M.Knuth
  • Cylindropuntia leptocaulis var. robustior (A.Berger) F.M.Knuth
  • Cylindropuntia leptocaulis var. vaginata (Engelm.) F.M.Knuth
  • Cylindropuntia mortolensis (Britton & Rose) F.M.Knuth
  • Grusonia leptocaulis (DC.) G.D.Rowley
  • Opuntia brittonii G.J.Ortega
  • Opuntia fragilis var. frutescens Engelm. & A.Gray
  • Opuntia frutescens Engelm.
  • Opuntia frutescens var. brevispina Engelm.
  • Opuntia frutescens var. longispina Engelm.
  • Opuntia gracilis Pfeiff.
  • Opuntia gracilis var. subpatens Salm-Dyck
  • Opuntia leptocaulis DC.
  • Opuntia leptocaulis f. brevispina (Engelm.) Schelle
  • Opuntia leptocaulis f. longispina (Engelm.) Schelle
  • Opuntia leptocaulis f. vaginata (Engelm.) Schelle
  • Opuntia leptocaulis var. badia A.Berger
  • Opuntia leptocaulis var. brevispina (Engelm.) S.Watson

and 12 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.