The Discus Prickly Pear, or discata, also grows in clumps from three to five feet high and as much as ten feet across, and has numerous ascending and spreading branches. This plant, too, will make an excellent cactus hedge. Its spreading branches are the disk-shaped joints of the stems, nearly a foot in diameter and circular and platelike, of a pale blue-green which in some lights is changeable. These disks are covered with fringes of yellow and brown spicules, needlelike and tough, and the edges also are fringed with them. Placed among the spicules are three or four twisted stout spines, white with yellow tips, and awl-shaped. The large flowers are three or four inches long, and are very showy and conspicuous with their bright satiny yellow tints. They bloom in April and May, and the pear-shaped deep purple fruit, three inches or so long, comes in July.
How to grow
Plants grow outside and indoors, enduring zero temperatures without injury. Plant mature cuttings of one joint six inches deep in moist soil early in spring and water about once a month to keep the soil lightly moist. They will grow in almost any soil, but best in sandy loam. Plants also grow from seed, but these are slow to germinate.
Engelmann’s Prickly Pear (Opuntia Engelmannii)
(Named in honor of Dr. George Engelmann, an early and outstanding student of cacti)
How to identify and how it grows
Engelmann’s Prickly Pear is a large spreading shrub six to twelve feet in diameter growing to five feet in height, with distinctive “pancakelike” greenish joints, about the size of a medium-sized meat platter, but somewhat elliptical and ascending from the base. The general color of this plant is greenish. Its spicules are abundant in fringes along the joints, colored orange-yellow or brownish, while the four spines are awl-shaped with purplish and tawny yellow bodies, and slightly banded. The brilliant satiny yellow flowers are large and very showy. They have the curious characteristic of changing to orange in the afternoon and orange-red in the evening, and are a little less than five inches in width and length. The plant blossoms in May and June, and the pear-shaped purple fruit comes in July.
How to grow
Treat cuttings in all respects as Opuntia discata. Engelmannii are not injured by zero temperatures.