Xerophyte

Habit

It is a columnar cactus, forming clumps or cushions with densely arranged shoots sometime creeping over boulders and cascading down sides.

Central Spines

Usually 1, acicular, terete, longer and stiffer.

Flowers

Funnelform on the sides of the stems, 6-10 cm long, huge colourful bright orange-red, with long hairy tube. Tepals orange-apricot to rose magenta inside, paler and less colourful outside. Stigma lobes 9 green.

Ribs

6-10 .

Stem

10-40 cm tall and 2,5 to 4 cm in diameter, upright cylindrical, yellowish-green to dark green.

Radial Spines

up 10 short to long, the young spines are yellowish or reddish-brown but turns cream or pale greyish-brown or rapidly.

Areoles

Small.