Xerophyte

Flowers and Fruits

One or more flowers are produced from the centre of the plant at one time. This deep centre, which is full of hairs that protect the fruit during its development over several months, is where the fruit dries and dehisces and where the new buds expel the fruits and seeds for dispersal.The fruit splits from the base. The very thin wall of the fruit looks like thin, brown translucent paper.

Seeds

The number of seeds produced in each fruit vary from 1 to 7 seeds or occasionally more (up to 25)

Roots

Has a large tap root below the surface of the compost.

Flowers

Yellow to lime green buds appear in late spring and are followed by beautiful pink flowers (about 20 mm in diameter).

Spines

Small, inconspicuous, at top of the plant 0,3-0,7 mm long, and barely visible without the aid of a magnifying lens. The older spines soon become decrepit, more or less destroyed.

Stem

Fan shaped, variously convoluted, flattened on top, depressed centrally along the line meristem, very small.

Areoles

Ordered in several lines that are not really ribs, just small undulations for which the term tubercles is perhaps too much. In cultivation areoles are whitish and hairy.