PlantKey Open ecological atlas
Planner
Home / Browse / Cylindropuntia / Brownspined Pricklypear (var. parkeri)
iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Pictured: Cylindropuntia californica — the species. This variety isn’t separately illustrated.
Cactaceae family

Brownspined Pricklypear (var. parkeri) Cylindropuntia californica var. parkeri variety

Native Specialist-bee host

Brownspined Pricklypear (var. parkeri) is a perennial shrub native to the lower 48 states. A host for pollen-specialist native bees.

More about this plant

Cylindropuntia bernardina is a species of cholla cactus commonly known as the cane cholla or valley cholla, native to California and northwestern Baja California. It is an erect cholla that grows up to 2–3 meters tall, and occurs primarily in the foothills of the Transverse and Peninsular Ranges, parts of the Sonoran Desert, and in the Coast Ranges with a few populations around the Cuyama River. It was formerly placed as the variety parkeri of Cylindropuntia californica until it was renamed to C. bernardina. It is more closely related to Cylindropuntia ganderi than to C. californica. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 11 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Lifespan
Perennial
In the garden
Shrub layer — Sits in the shrub of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
✦ Bees specialist-bee host

Specialist native bees depend on it.

Some native bees are pollen specialists (oligolectic) — they raise young only on pollen from particular plant genera. Cylindropuntia is a recorded specialist-bee host, so losing it can mean losing the bee that relies on it.

Xerces pollinator conservation →
Specialist hosts from Smith et al. 2024.
Sources for this entry (9) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[06] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[07] Ecological value — GloBI · Smith et al. 2024 (CC BY)
[08] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX 
Loading…