"Sweet Prickly Pear" Opuntia monacantha variegata

Opuntia monacantha f. monstruosa variegata commonly known as “Joseph's Coat” is one of the very few naturally occurring white-variegated cacti. It is a dwarf, teratological variant of the larger Prickly Pear cactus Opuntia monacantha. As its name suggests, this cactus is variegated or marbled with white, creamy-white, yellow, green and sometimes also with pink in varying patterns.

It is an odd shrubby or tree-like plant that forms wonderfully tortured shapes usually less than 50 cm tall, but occasionally up to 1 m or more meters tall. To many, it looks stretched or etiolated due to lack of light, but it's actually a monstrous form with long, smooth, flattened beautifully green, yellow and pink covered in tiny hair spines with small red flowers.