This is a coast prickly pear cactus highlighted by the midday sun. It grows only in a 20-mile-wide coastal strip that extends from Los Angeles to San Diego in the US and down to Baja California in Mexico. You can, apparently, cook the fruit like a pumpkin and mill the seeds into flour. Handy!
Prickly pears grow all over the west, from Oklahoma to Baja.
The coast variety only grows there, of course.
Very nice! The prickly pears in our general area are well into their flowering, and we've got a cow's tongue prickly pear that's got literally hundreds of flowerbuds which are finally beginning to open. The local bees are in hog heaven. The chollas (another Opuntia) are just getting started.