World's Largest Collection of Opuntia (Cactaceae), prickly pear cacti
Flowering Opuntia fragilis, or prickly pear cactus, in the collection of WIU Department of Biological Sciences Professor Eric Ribbens. The world's largest collection of Optunia fragisis is in Illinois, USA! I'm re-posting excerpts and you can read the entire fascinating article at Outcome Magazine " Last June, as Eric Ribbens and I perused his collection of his Opuntia fragilis — probably the largest collection of its kind on the planet — located near the Western Illinois University School of Agriculture’s Farm in Macomb, the Department of Biological Sciences Professor and Fulbright Scholar told me about the unusual sex life of this rare and endangered prickly pear cactus. “If you’re going to go through the work of having sex, the goal is to maximize the genetic recombination. Yet, in plants, it’s possible for pollen to move to the same plant. But for the Opuntia fragilis, these plants have some sort of a chemical recognition cue, and if they sense the...