Opuntia humifusa(Raf.) Raf.

low pricklypear

WFO wfo-0000385811 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Opuntia humifusa, photographed by Craig Martin
fig. a Craig Martin, CC0 1.0 / 2021-10-27 / obs. 166004523
Opuntia humifusa, photographed by Steven Bodzin
fig. b Steven Bodzin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 147835339
Opuntia humifusa, photographed by Mike Heine
fig. c Mike Heine, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 157669402
Opuntia humifusa, photographed by Annie Weissman
fig. d Annie Weissman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 154243468
Opuntia humifusa, photographed by Frederick Nunley
fig. e Frederick Nunley, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195409931
Opuntia humifusa, photographed by Alie / C.A. Kratzer
fig. f Alie / C.A. Kratzer, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 151879712
Opuntia humifusa, photographed by the swamp ass
fig. g the swamp ass, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 142445034
Opuntia humifusa, photographed by the swamp ass
fig. h the swamp ass, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146705062

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 = 523 observations

Peak flowering in Jun, from 523 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 22 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.

  • Cactus humifusus Raf.
  • Cactus italicus Ten. ex Steud.
  • Cactus italicus Ten.
  • Cactus opuntia var. vulgaris (Mill.) DC.
  • Opuntia allairei Griffiths
  • Opuntia calcicola Wherry
  • Opuntia compressa var. allairei (Griffiths) D.Weniger
  • Opuntia compressa var. humifusa (Raf.) D.Weniger
  • Opuntia humifusa subsp. humifusa
  • Opuntia humifusa var. humifusa
  • Opuntia intermedia Salm-Dyck
  • Opuntia intermedia var. prostrata Salm-Dyck
  • Opuntia italica Ten. ex Pfeiff.
  • Opuntia prostrata Monv. & Lem. ex C.F.Först.
  • Opuntia rafinesquei Engelm.
  • Opuntia rafinesquei var. parva F.Haage & E.Schmidt
  • Opuntia rafinesquiana Urlandt
  • Opuntia rubiflora Griffiths
  • Opuntia vulgaris Mill.
  • Opuntia vulgaris var. major Salm-Dyck
  • Opuntia vulgaris var. media Salm-Dyck
  • Platyopuntia vulgaris (Mill.) F.Ritter

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.