glochid

A short barbed hair, many of which arise in tufts from the areoles of some cacti. It is a type of *glochidium. The presence of glochids is one character used to separate the subfamily Opuntioideae, whose members possess glochids, from the other two subfamilies of the Cactaceae, Pereskioideae and Cactoideae, in which glochids are absent.