Xerophyte

Central Spines

1-4, subulate, erect, all curved upwards, nearly 2,5 cm long, stout, typically black, becoming grey black, becoming grey as the age, with more or less purplish tips, base swollen.

Seeds

Glossy black, ovoid, slightly laterally compressed, appox 15 mmlong. Testa finely warty. Hilum lateral, oblique, large, often deeply sunken and protruding rimmed.

Description

Eriosyce meglioliiSN|1818]]SN|1822]] is one of the best looking speces along with Eriosyce umadeaveSN|1822]]SN|1830]]. The apex is characteristically covered with very thick, incurved, blackish-purple spines.

Flowers

From the from centre of plant, urn-shaped, 27-30 mm cm in diameter, straw coloured, yellow or green yellow with wine-red tube. Scales brownish yellow lined with dense white wool and several bristles. Outer tepals lanceolate, pink to brownish, with a small black mucro (pointed tip). Inner tepals lanceolate mucronate , pink with darker carmine mid-rib. Throat dark carmine. Filaments white with pink bases; anthers light yellow. Style pink, stigma white with 8 lobes.

Chromosome Number

2n = 22.

Ribs

About 12-14, straight , rounded, divided into prominent little tubercles beneath the areoles, separated by fairly deep vertical furrows.

Stem

Globose to sub-globose or short-cylindrical as it becomes old, typically glaucous bluish-grey, with a white bloom, especially at the top of the plant, 10-12 cm in diameter, eventually up to 45 cm tall. Apex depressed somewhat woolly.

Fruits

Small, almost spherical, wine red , about 10 mm diameter, dry when ripe, green often disintegrating at maturity.

Habit

It is a solitary globular cactus with unique and remarkably beautiful shape.

Note

Specimens from natural habitats generally have a thicker spination and a thicker epidermal layer.

Radial Spines

5-7(-9) up to 2 cm long, radiating, straight or more or less recurved, similar to the centrals or paler.

Areoles

Conspicuous, oval, 7-10 × 5-6 mm broad, woolly and hairy when young (with yellowish-white felt fading to dirty white or grey), later naked.