Cylindropuntia californica aka Crested California Cholla

Cylindropuntia californica is part of the cactus family. The name of that family is Cactaceae. LLIFLE gives California prickly pear as an English common name. Kew places its native range in southern California and Mexico. The parts of Mexico in that range include Baja California and Sonora. The RHS states that this plant is not native to Britain. It is not native to Ireland either. These records show where the plant is native, not its garden needs.

Kew calls the plant a succulent subshrub or shrub. Succulent means that it has parts that store water. A subshrub is a small shrub with a woody base. It grows in desert or dry shrubland habitats. The sources give no height or spread for this species. There is thus no size range to give here. They give no details about its leaves or stems. Details about its flowers and fruit are also absent. The RHS does describe some traits of the genus. Those traits do not serve as facts about this species.

LLIFLE accepts Cylindropuntia californica as the plant's scientific name. It also lists two other names for the same species. These are Cereus californicus and Grusonia californica. Such names are known as synonyms. They can help link older plant records to this species. LLIFLE has separate pages under each of those names. Those pages confirm the link between the names. They do not point to different species in these records.

Most of the evidence concerns the plant's name and native range. It also gives a broad sense of its growth form. It does not state how much light it needs in gardens. Nor does it give a plan for when to water. Its hardiness is not clear from these sources. They do not state when it blooms or how fast it grows. They also give no record of its use in landscapes.

The sources give no pest facts tied to this species. They give no such facts about diseases, either. They do not show which parts, if any, people can eat. Nor do they establish whether the plant is toxic. The lack of these facts does not show that it is safe to eat.