Talk:List of edible cacti

On adding this page I did not make many distinctions, ie. leaves, fruit, roots, etc. I also noted that the entry for Opuntia was not well maintainted, and not any real cleaning, maintaining, or activity in about 10 years. As such, I plan to make occasional additions and corrections, but feel free to change, add, or organize. You can also check my status on my user page — meatclerk (talk) 03:56, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I can see that there might be scope for a list article on edible cacti, but the forum used as the only source here is not a reliable source. Also the title of the article should be "List of edible cacti" – "List of" titles are always followed by a plural word. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:26, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Peter thanks for the corrections. I welcome any additions. It appears someone did a few days after our comments. No doubt the sources are weak, but you have to start some place. Personally, I don't have the library I once used to have. Thanks again. meatclerk (talk) 07:10, 10 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Work needed[edit]

This needs work. I found an error and omissions (small things, though) and I am by no means a cactus person. Mainly, I added members of the Hylocereus genus and inserted a missing heading for this genus. It should be noted that there appears to be a lot of reclassification and lack of clarity (synonyms & misidentifications) within this genus (both at the varietal level and the species level). For instance, I believe Selenicereus grandiflorus is now called Hylocereus grandiflorus.

I do have one specific question. The entry claims these Hylocereus cacti are from China and SE Asia. Is this supposed to indicate current distribution or native distribution? The intended meaning of this geographic information in the article should be clarified. Several species in this genus are certainly widely cultivated in China and SE Asia but they are all native to Central and South America (in fact, unless I am mistaken, no Cactaceae are natively found outside the Americas). So "- SE Asia and China" should be removed altogether if the intent is to show native range.

An example of a place listing edible Hylocereus can be found at https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/HS/HS30300.pdf (table 1 & table 2 -probably more species could be added based on table 1 --I might have a more extensive, academically sourced document that could be used as a reference somewhere but I can't find it right now).

Also, I added Acanthocereus tetragonus (the fruits of which are stated to be edible in its Wikipedia entry --I have found at least one online commercial plant catalog entry claiming its fruits to be edible as well).

Cosmicaug (talk) 02:26, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly no edible cacti are native anywhere outside the Americas. In general, as noted above, this has been a poorly referenced article.

The other issue is whether it's meant to be a list of cacti that are in principle edible, or those actually used regularly as food. Many cacti have fruits that could be eaten, but aren't normally. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:32, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]