Plants erect, commonly unbranched, becoming many branched and moundlike in old age, deep-seated in substrate. Roots taproots. Stems unsegmented, usually gray-green or blue-green to dark green [yellow-green in L. diffusa of Mexico], usually flat-topped and cryptic in soil surface, sometimes protruding above it with recessed apex, ribbed or weakly tuberculate, 2-7.5 × (4-)5-12 cm, softly fleshy, soft skinned, dull, glabrous; ribs 5, 8, or 13 (rarely 21), low, broadly rounded, straight, vertical or less often helically curved around stem; areoles 3-15+ mm apart along ribs or at apices of low, humplike tubercles, circular, copiously hairy, hairs usually in compact, erect tufts to 7-10 mm; areolar glands absent; cortex and pith not mucilaginous. Spines absent. Flowers diurnal, deeply nestled in copious areolar hairs at stem apex, arising from adaxial edges of areoles, campanulate, 1-3 × (1-)1.5-2.5 cm; outer tepals whitish to greenish pink, midrib greenish, margins entire or minutely fringed or ciliate distally; inner tepals usually white to pink [rarely yellowish white or magenta to reddish violet, at least in Coahuila, Mexico], 8-14(-22) × (1-)2.5-5 mm, margins ciliate or entire; ovary smooth, scales, hairs, and spines absent; stigma lobes (3-)4-8, white or pinkish, 1-3 mm. Fruits indehiscent, white to pinkish [to purple], clavate to nearly cylindric, 11-25 × (2-)4-5 mm, weakly succulent, quickly drying and contracting after ripening, upon drying becoming translucent and brownish white or whitish, spines and scales absent; pulp colorless; floral remnant weakly persistent or tardily deciduous. Seeds black, somewhat pyriform, cylindric, or obovoid, 1-1.5 × 1-1.2 mm, not glossy, with large, flat hilum; testa cells strongly convex. x = 11.
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