Xerophyte

Habit

It is a perennial stem succulent. Plants usually solitary. Multiple branches may also been produced when the apex is damaged.

Central Spines

1-3, straight, pointing to side or downward, 7-20 mm long straight, not flattened, stiff , horn coloured, yellowish, light brown, reddish brown or dark red with dark spots. The spine-bases are red-brown and tips are often darker.

Description

Parodia mueller-melchersiiSN|17641]]SN|17641]] (best known as Notocactus mueller-melchersiiSN|17642]]SN|17642]]) in contrast to most notocacti (that have almost always yellow flowers), has flowers ranging from creamy yellow to lavender. The spines are also variable ranging from yellowish-white to dark red-brown. Several of its colour and morphological variant was early classified as different independent varieties, but nowadays all this plant are considered part of a multiform species, where each variant form is linked to others by populations of plants with intermediate characteristics.

Flowers

Several produced together around the stems apex, creamy yellow, citron yellow, pink, light lavender or reddish becoming paler to yellowish in the throat or pale golden yellow, to 3-4 cm long and 5-6 cm in diameter; pericarpels and floral tubes with white wool and dark bristles. Stigma pale carmine.

Blooming Season

Summer.

Ribs

(18-)20-24, vertical or weakly spiralling, not distinctly tuberculate with chin-like humps below the areoles more evident near stem apex.

Stem

Globose to shortly columnar , dull green, to 8-10(-24) cm tall and 5-6 cm in diameter or slightly larger. Crown wooly and spiny.

Radial Spines

12-18, or more, slender, needle-like, diverging, pale yellow or whitish, darker-tipped 5-8 mm long.

Fruits

Club shaped elongating at base, 1,5 cm long thin-walled.

Areoles

Initially white felted .