Opuntia or Nopal Cactus.

It’s the tallest cactus I have in my garden, it has been in my garden for several years. I remember that my sister gave it to me as a gift after a friend of hers gave her 3 of these cacti. It was a single stalk and I planted it and since then many, many more plants have been born.

This is a type of cactus whose origin is Mexican and in fact they use it a lot in their culinary art and as a medicinal plant.

It is a cactus that has a diversity of opuntia species with different characteristics and flavors.

The fruit of the Opuntia cactus is oval shaped, somewhat globular with many tiny spines all over its surface. It’s a thick shell that must be chopped to penetrate to the pulp which is very red.

The flesh of this particular cactus has a beet-like red pigment. It is soft with multiple small seeds inside, it has a sweet but not extremely sweet taste and a high liquid content, because there are orange and white fruits.

It can be eaten as freshly extracted fruit or elaborating its different ways of eating it in stews, jams or in salty spreads.

Prickly pears are used to prepare alcoholic beverages and typical preparations for everyday meals.

Prickly pears contain a lot of liquid that is used as a diuretic, it is also astringent and is used in liquid evacuations and it also has many vitamins and considered antitumor for prostate cancer.

For the moment this is what I can say about this Opuntia cactus, which is also called Nopal.

Thank you all for your comments and votes.