Opuntia basilarisEngelm. & J.M.Bigelow

Beavertail Pricklypear

WFO wfo-0001286991 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Opuntia basilaris, photographed by velodrome
fig. a velodrome, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-03 / obs. 188033309
Opuntia basilaris, photographed by James M. Maley
fig. b James M. Maley, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 191027838
Opuntia basilaris, photographed by rachelbuckthorn
fig. c rachelbuckthorn, CC0 1.0 / obs. 187621439
Opuntia basilaris, photographed by Alan Rockefeller
fig. d Alan Rockefeller, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 181246110
Opuntia basilaris, photographed by Kimball Garrett
fig. e Kimball Garrett, CC0 1.0 / obs. 173659650
Opuntia basilaris, photographed by CK2AZ
fig. f CK2AZ, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 174126424
Opuntia basilaris, photographed by CK2AZ
fig. g CK2AZ, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 174126170
Opuntia basilaris, photographed by CK2AZ
fig. h CK2AZ, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 174127284

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.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 3,813 observations

Peak flowering in Apr, from 3,813 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 18 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.

  • Opuntia basilaris subsp. brachyclada (Griffiths) Guiggi
  • Opuntia basilaris subsp. treleasei (J.M.Coult.) Guiggi
  • Opuntia basilaris subsp. whitneyana (E.M.Baxter) Munz
  • Opuntia basilaris var. albiflora Walton
  • Opuntia basilaris var. albiflora (E.M.Baxter) W.T.Marshall & T.M.Bock
  • Opuntia basilaris var. cordata Fobe
  • Opuntia basilaris var. humistrata (Griffiths) W.T.Marshall
  • Opuntia basilaris var. ramosa Parish
  • Opuntia basilaris var. whitneyana (E.M.Baxter) W.T.Marshall & T.M.Bock
  • Opuntia brachyclada Griffiths
  • Opuntia brachyclada subsp. humistrata (Griffiths) Wiggins & C.B.Wolf
  • Opuntia humistrata Griffiths
  • Opuntia intricata Griffiths
  • Opuntia longiareolata Clover & Jotter
  • Opuntia treleasei J.M.Coult.
  • Opuntia treleasei var. kernii Griffiths & Hare
  • Opuntia whitneyana E.M.Baxter
  • Opuntia whitneyana var. albiflora E.M.Baxter

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.