There are many "violet prickly pear" some are of the Opuntia violacia var macrocentra violacia, It has a yellow flower with a orange center.And some are of the variety Opuntias "tubac" violacia Santa Rita. It has a clear yellow flower . I think it is a O. gosselinanna var Santa rita. It gets really confusing . The varieties in Prickly Pear land and their misnamed confusion wrapped around the varieties of Violet prickly pear are enough to make a collector tear their hair out .

People buy Pads from different places on the internet. They say that the Lithops site has malware on the site, but I have gone and my computer is fine. I have a Mac. I have traded for cactus pads on this forum before. I have that cactus but no pads to spare right now.Maybe next year. I include the info on it from DG
http://www.riogrande-cacti.com/pricelist.html
http://www.bobsmoleys.com/m-o.html
http://www.lithops.net/index.html
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/55374/
To your questions . Yes you can grow them in Zone 8. They are cold hardy in New mexico.One has to worry more about the dampness of Georgia than the cold. Youy will have to look into how to increase your drainage in your mix and create raised beds. The purple color is the plants reaction to stress from cold.
It can be grown in a pot. But prickly pears do like a bit of root space more than Cactus does.

thank you very much very informative and whenever you have some pads and want to trade/give to someone ask me!

I have 4 people in line for that cactus before you so you have something to trade for it enter it on the cactus exchange forum.I have had good luck there . It took awhile, three weeks, but I got good trades off of it. I was pleasantly surprised. I will keep you in mind. Opuntias are a new infatuation of mine so many of my cactus are fairly small.

Saw this item at Home Depot yesterday. 6 inch pot for 4.97 containing 2 big pads. The tag name was "violet prickly pear" and the pads were a purple color, but as to the exact species name, I can't recall.
But unfortunately that was in CA, not GA. HD has some larger cacti lately at some good prices, nothing too rare though. You might check HD if one is near you.

thank you, wantonamara i cant wait but anytime is fine and as for trade i dont really have nothing to good now! but soon ill be getting a cow's tongue cactus there very unique but im sure you already know!

and thanks also, dr
but ive already been to home depot and they didnt have that!

but over all thanks!

What pls. is a "cow's tongue" cactus? (Botanically, that is.) That's a new one on me -- yikes!

Opuntia lindheimeri forma linguiformis
Opuntia engelmannii var linguiformisorma linguiformis
or Opuntia ficus-indica var. linguiformis are all refered to as Cows tongue but O. lindheimeri v. linguiformis is also called Angels wing cactus

Sorry about the O. engelmannii var linguiformisorma linguiformis. Don't know what happened there.. but it's just O. engelmannii var linguiformis. From what I can find, O. engelmannii and O. lindheimeri are considered one and the same by some... some consider O. engelmannii just a misnomer for another cactus and some have them as two different cacti. I've seen a cowstongue that had pads up to 4 feet long and others that had small pads only about a foot. Are both the same? I don't think so... One was labeled Cowstongue and one as Angelwing.
I'm sure there are other cactus species that form elongated pads.

oh sry but yes what he said. there amazing. there pads are like, instead of round and oval shapes. theres more kinda streched out! so thats like my favorite opuntia. that and violet (which i dont have of course) but yea!

A form Cows toungue PP grows wild on the hill next door , OPuntia Engelmanii var linguiformis. As I understand it, Opuntia Englemanii either has a sh#t load of variations or many other opuntias like O.Lindheimerii and O Dillei have been lumped under the Engelmanii moniker. I like to see them as seperate species since they really do look different. The spine color and character is different between the lindheimer and the englemani. Lindheimer's spines are yellow and translucent and kinda shiny and the englemani is whiter and chalkier. The O. dillie has no spines but only very short dark grey glochids, very different from the Englemani. I am no scientist,so I can't say what it's DNA says or what the true specifics are. I can only tell you what my dilletant level observations are. I think that the linguiformis variations of the Englemani and the lindheimer are different, The lindheimer spination seems somewhat shorter , more regular and friendlier. The Englemanii seems more erratic, with spines of different sizes and protruding in different directions. Definitely less friendly. I am not positive, but I think the head honchos of the name game are moving in the direction of separating the variations into different species. Personally, I don't know how they do it. I am still trying to ID the cactus in my front field without pulling my hair out.

haha thats funny, and amazing, and confusing. in one! but yes i love the shape variations between the cow tongue (gross name by the way) and normal opuntias i think i heard somewhere another name for cows tongue is lawyers tongues. is this true?

OH, I love the name. I had cows and their tongues ARE yucky. They also consumed all my cactus out in my front field one year when we had very little water.. HAHA. How do they do that! I often thought about the state of their tongues as the cactus started to disappear. Now I just think about the cactus and tongue merged into one. Lawyers toungue...... That is a new one on me.

check it out on the link below on the bottom of the page it states the name lawyers tongue(which i like WAY better than cows tongue)

Here is a link that might be useful: cows tongue