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Plants shrubby, low, spreading to form clumps to 2 in (6.6ft) wide, sometimes with erect stem segments to 60 cm (24in) high. Stem segments fairly small, nearlyround, light green,10-15 cm (3.9-5.9 in) in diameter. Areoles often spineless toward bases of segments. Glochids yellow, later brownish. Spines 2-4, on upper areoles of segments, some spreading,flattened, dark brown with black bases.
Flowers yellow, becoming orange with age.
Fruits reddish purple.
On Edwards Plateau and South Texas Plains. According to Uvalde Research and Extension Center it grows at high elevations in limestone soils and it occurs only in a small strip of about 20 miles from the Anaconcho Mountains in the southwest corner of Uvalde county, through the mountains of the Devil's and Pecos rivers, to near Dryden, Texas.

According to Dave Ferguson this species grows on east side of the upper bend of the Big Bend in Texas, but ranges south to the area of Muzquiz in Mexico. It is not in Brewster nor Presidio Counties at all, and it is not up on the Edwards Plateau or near the coast either. It blends into O. strigil toward the Stockton Plateau and Dryden in Texas.

Click here to follow ling to an image of Opuntia atrispina