PRICKLY PEAR, or INDIAN Fin, Opuntia, a genus of plants of the natural order coMne (q.v.), having a fleshy stem, generally formed of compressed articulations, sonic times of cylindrical articulations; leafless, except that the youngest shoots produce small cylindrical leaves, which soon fall off; generally covered with clusters of strong hairs or of prickles; the flowers springing from among the clusters of prickles, or from the margin or summit of the articulations, solitary, or corymboso-panieulate, generally yellow, rarely white br red; the fruit resembling a fig or pear, with clusters of prickles on the skin, mucilaminous, generably eatable—that of some 'species p:easant, that of others insipid. 'The fruit imparts a red color to the urine. The prickles of some species are so strong, and their stems grow up in such number and strength, that they are used for hedge-plants in warm countries.—The CommoN PRICKLY PAR or INDIAN FIG (0. rulgaris), a native of Virginia and more southern parts of North America, is now naturalized in many parts of Virginia s. of Europe and n. of Africa, and in other warm countries. It grows well on the barest rocks, and spreads over expanses of volcanic sand and ashes too arid for almost any Whet' plant. It is of humble growth; its fruit oval, rather larger than a lien's egg-, yellow,
and tinged with purple, the pulp red or purple, juicy, and pleasantly combining sweet ness with acidity. It is extensively used in many countries as a substantive article of food. In the s. of England the prickly pear lives in the open air, and occasionally ripens its fruit. In America it is cultivated considerably to the n. of its native region. Lime rubbish is often mixed with the soil in which it is to be planted. The fruit is imported into Britain, to a small extent, from the Meciiterraneam—The DWARF PRICKLY PEAR (0. nana), very similar, but smaller, and having prostrate stems, is nat uralized in Europe as far n. as the sunny slopes of the Tyrol.—The TI:NA (0. tuna), much used in some parts of the West Indies'as a hedge-plant, and also valuable as one of the species which afford food to the cochineal insect, yields a pleasant fruit. It has red flowers, with long stamens, which display a remarkable irritability.