Santa Rita Prickly Pear

(back blip)

While I can't promise because I might run into a sensational specimen at some point, this will probably be my last cactus flower for some time.  The Santa Rita prickly pear is native to the area in southern Arizona surrounded by the Santa Rita mountains (where I live).

To the untrained eye, one prickly pear cactus flower is just like any other.  Those eyes would be very wrong.  The differences in color are obvious but it's difficult to discern the variety of sizes in photos.  The really significant differences can be seen in the physical structure of the petals. 
For instance, this Santa Rita is 5 - 9 cm wide with narrow petals and wavy edges.  The Grizzly is ± 4.5 cm wide and has short petals with scalloped edges. The Black-spine measures 5 - 7.5 cm with smooth edges each coming to a single point. Lastly of the ones I blipped, the Bunny Ears at ≤ 5 cm wide are almost translucent, heavily overlapped and have jagged edges.  Go ahead and compare. (It can't possibly take as long as it did for me to research and write this up!)