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A spiteful little plant that was no more friendly when it was an Opuntia. It doesn't have spines but it has an abundance of brown glochids that are just as irritating
when they stick in your skin. The Llifle encyclopedia says: "Origin and Habitat: Argentina (Province of Salta: Questa de Molinas in the valle Calchaquí). Grows on sandy soils in a open area among wide spread Trichocereus pasacana. At the end of the dry season the cladodes are very dehidrated and plants retract almost at soil level. It is a small segmented succulent that grows into mounds of tiny stems or joints. In cultivation grows as a small erect segment chains. In habitat the plants stay smaller because the uppermost segments are detachable and drop easily. It is related to Tephrocactus articulatus and reminds some spineless forms of it. A particularity of this plant is that it seems to be able to completely regrow all the glochids even on old corky basal segments, so the tufts of glochids get denser and denser as the stems age." |
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