Fairly large shrubby or tree like, blue-green prickly pear, with several branches and rarely with a somewhat definite trunk to ca 1.5 m high and 2.5 m wide. Spines are absent but the joints have copious evenly spaced areoles in which numerous reddish glochids are borne. The common names in English (blind prickly pear) and Spanish (nopal cegador) come from the belief that the glochids are loose and supposedly may fly into the air when the plants are shaken. The dislodged glochids may get into the eyes of animals and cause severe problems.