Xerophyte

Central Spines

0-1 similar to radial spines 5 mm long, more erect.

Seeds

Helmet shaped, shining, black .

Description

Frailea pygmaea as the name implies ("pygmaeus" meaning dwarf), is a very small cactus that lives half buried in the ground. Most of the plants in habitat are single headed unless they are damaged. The "aurea" form is very nice, due to it golden-yellow spines and yellowish- or brown-tomentose areoles. The flowers are yellow and opens only during the sunniest summer days.

Roots

Long tuberose, inversely conical and branched.

Flowers

Yellow, arising from the crown from a very woolly bud, often cleistogamous, 2 to 2.5 cm, up to 3 cm diameter, pale yellow, with dense, whitish to rose-colored pubescence outside.

Blooming Season

Hottest part of summer.

Ribs

16-18 quite flat, divided by transverse depression into very minute rounded tubercles.

Stem

2 to 2.5(-3) cm in diameter and 1.5 cm above the ground (more in cultivation) flattened, dull-green to yellowish-green, depressed at the crown, with a turbinate base. Apex partially covered with sulfur yellow spines.

Radial Spines

12-14, c. 4 mm long, golden-yellow, quite fine, partially interlocking, bristly, more or less adpressed, pointing laterally (pectinated) and downward.

Fruits

8 mm wide and 1 cm long, round, yellowish, with bright yellowish brown wool and long dark brown bristle forming a pointed head of bristles. Bristles not pungent.The fruit wall is thick, membranous, fragile and it opens by a basal pore to release the seeds that are promptly harvested by ants.

Areoles

Yellowish-tomentose (brown in original description ), l.5 mm long and 1 mm wide becoming bare with time, to 5 mm apart.