Opuntia macrorhiza or gravelly soils. It is one of the shorter species of the genus, rarely over 30 cm (1 foot) tall, spreading horizontally and forming large clumps. Flowers are showy and bright yellow, sometimes with red markings near the base of the petals. Fruits are narrow, red, juicy and edible. Several varieties have proposed within the species. More study is needed to determine whether these should continue to be recognized as varieties, elevated to species status, or regarded as mere synonyms. Opuntia macrorhiza Opuntia macrorhiza is a common and widespread species of cactus with the common names plains prickly pear or
Plant functional type Plant functional type Plant functional types (PFTs) is a system used by climatologists to classify plants according to their physical, phylogenetic and phenological characteristics as part of an overall effort to develop a vegetation model for use in land use studies and climate models. PFTs provide a finer level of modeling than biomes, which represent gross areas such as desert, savannah, deciduous forest. In creating a PFT model, areas as small as 1 km are modeled by defining the predominant plant type for that area, interpreted from satellite data or other means. For each plant functional type, a number of