Opuntia microdasys

Spreading shrub, to c.100 cm high, often somewhat creeping,  forming clumps to 3 metres wide, trunk absent. Terminal cladodes compressed, broadly obovate, 8–15 cm long, 6–12 cm wide, dull mid green, minutely pubescent; areoles 80–100 per cladode face, 4–10 mm apart, filled with yellowish-brown glochids; spines absent. Flowers 3–5 cm diam.; sepaloids with green centres and yelllow margins, often tinged red; petaloids spreading, mid yellow, mucronate; stamens pale yellow; style pale greenish yellow, stigmas green; hypanthium more or less tuberculate. Fruit subglobose to ovoid, deeply depressed at apex when young, 2.5–3 cm long, 2–3 cm diam., not tuberculate, dark red. Flowers late spring–summer.