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Prickly pears also produce a fruit that is commonly eaten in Mexico, known as "tuna"; it also is used to make aguas frescas. The fruit can be red, wine-red, green or yellow-orange. Charles Darwin was the first to note that these cacti have thigmotactic anthers: when the anthers are touched, they curl over, depositing their pollen. This movement can be seen by gently poking the anthers of an open Opuntia flower. The same trait has evolved convergently in other cacti The fruit of prickl |
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In botanical terminology, the fruit is not a berry, but an aggregate fruit of numerous drupelets ripening to black or dark purple. In its first year, a new stem, the primocane, grows vigorously to its full length of 3-6 m (in some cases, up to 9 m), arching or trailing along the ground and bearing large palmately compound leaves with five or seven leaflets; it does not produce any flowers. In its second year, the cane becomes a floricane and the stem does not grow longer, but the flower buds bre |
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The sweetly scented flowers are used to make pot-pourri in Japan and China, where it has been cultivated for about a thousand years. This species hybridises readily with many other roses, and is valued by rose breeders for its considerable resistance to the diseases rose rust and rose black spot. It is also extremely tolerant of seaside salt spray and storms, commonly being the first shrub in from the coast. It is widely used in landscaping, being relatively tough and trouble-free. Needing littl |
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