Xerophyte

Habit

It forms carpets usually 1 meter in diameter or less.

Note

“tilcarensis” For the town of San Francisco de Tilcara (usually referred to as Tilcara) in the province of Jujuy, Argentina, and the head town of the Tilcara Department.

Flowers

Mostly yellow, occasionally orange or red, to 5.5 cm long

Spines

2-12, usually 5-8, needle-like, stout, rather variable in colour, usually yellowish to brownish, erect, unequal, spreading, on most areoles, 3-7 cm long, but occasionally up to 13 cm long (see

Stem

At first erect or ascending, finally prostrate and rooting on under-edges of growth and forming new colonies, flattened, orbicular, sometimes crescent shaped, somewhat tuberculate, very spiny, 4-6 cm long.

Fruits

to 2.5(-3) cm long, lacking areoles below, with some spines to 2 cm long above. Fruits split either horizontally, or vertically on the umbilicus, a character, this latter, that in Hunt et al. (2006) indicated as distinctive of T. tilcarensis.