Cylindrical opuntia:

This is a cactus that belongs to the cacti family, its genus is Opuntia and it’s a cylindrical species.

It is a highly branched cactus with a straight stem in a cylindrical shape and with many sharp thorns, of approximately 1cm of length, across its entire surface. It has white areolas from where the thorns start.

It has numerous green extensions, similar to leaves, very close to the position of the spines on the areoles. To reproduce the plant, one of the thorny stems is taken and sown in a substrate equal to that of the mother plant.

It can withstand direct sun exposure and it should not receive a lot of water in its substrate since it does not support waterlogging. It must have little humidity in its soil.

It’s a very branched and thorny cactus, hand protection measures must be taken when handling, either when the stems are cut or when you decide to transplant it to another pot.

It needs to be pruned because it grows bushy and voluminous and the excess of the thorns, although it makes it beautiful, does not allow us to make beautiful shapes with its stems, because it becomes impenetrable.

It belongs to a genus that has abundant species, they are all very eye-catching and easy to collect. They do not need much care so they’re good for a beginning collector, you just need to carefully follow the rules to keep a cactus in good condition.

The photographs are my property taken with my samsung mini s3 phone