Cow’s Tongue Cactus

Cow’s Tongue prickly pear cactus is also known as “Lawyer’s Tongue,” “Donkey Ear” and opuntia engelmannii var. linguiformis. We collected a specimen that was laying on the ground under a larger plant in the wash running through one of the local parks. We placed it in a pot of native soil from our wash a couple of months ago. I think it likes it here because it quickly grew two new pads and there are more coming on top of them.

We found WufStuff, a very interesting website that describes this cactus and has a lot of good information about prickly pear cacti in general. Excerpt:

A common sight in Arizona gardens is the Cow’s Tongue Prickly Pear. Folks like this cactus because of the unusual shape of the pads, which strongly resemble a cow’s tongue. It takes little water, and has yellow or orange flowers in the spring that form along the margins of the pads, followed by numerous red fruits.

The cultivating of these cactus requires only that it be planted and left to grow on it’s own, no fertilizer, no watering, nada, nothing. Best grown on land useless for growing corn and other Cattle feed stock. After a year or two, the pads are ready to eat and the fruit is ready to harvest if so desired. After each feeding the cactus is left to grow another meal which happens quite quickly in the desert lands of the Southwest.

Click on the image above to enlarge.