Xerophyte

Central Spines

Small, fish-hooked, usually 1 (or sometime 2 or 3) per areole, porrect, often more elongated, darker, 9-18 mm long. Subcentral spines

Seeds

Black, 0.9-1.1 × 0.8-1.1 × 0.7 mm, pitted.

Description

It is a small cactus with slender stems, that likes to cluster from the base, forming nice clumps or families. The particularity of this species is that every branch will form an independent root system, the connections of which to the rest of clone are ephemeral, resulting in dense clumps of independently rooted stems.

Roots

Diffuse, upper portion not enlarged.

Tubercles

Flabby, purplish green, short conical to cylindrical. 5-9 × 5-9 mm; axils appearing naked or slightly woolly; cortex and pith not mucilaginous; latex absent. Parastichy number

Flowers

Broadly funnel-form, light pink on the outside and a deeper lavender pink in the center, with a white star shape appearance from a distance, due to the contrast of colors, 1.5-3 long and 1-2.5 cm large. The outermost tepal margins are densely short-fringed.

Blooming Season

Apr-May, July-Aug.

Spines

Whitish to yellowish near base, pale reddish brown to nearly black toward tips, glabrous; They do not hide the surface of the stem completely.

Fruits

Prominent, bright red, obovoid to nearly clavate, 7-15 × 4-7 mm, juicy only in fruit walls; floral remnants persistent. Fruiting in Oct-Nov, Feb-Mar.