Shrub or tree 2–5 m high, to 5 m diam., with straggling and pendant branches; a definite trunk 10–20 cm diam. Stem segments firmly attached, lanceolate, compresed, narrowly lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, 15–35 cm long, 3–8 cm wide, not tuberculate, green, sometimes with reddish purplish tinges, dull or slightly glossy, glabrous. Areoles circular or subcircular to elliptic, 2.5–3.5 mm long, 2–3.5 mm wide, typically 15–25 mm apart, filled with creamish to pale brown wool. Leaves succulent, terete, conical, to 3–4 mm long, caducous. Spines spreading (1) 2 or 3 per areole, the longer spines 20–35 mm long, 0.5–0.7 mm wide near base, mostly straight or some apically curved, rigid, creamish or pale yellow, ageing white to brownish, with 1 or 2, shorter, thin, weak spines. Glochids 1–1.2 mm long, pale brown. Flowers 15–18 mm diam.; outer tepals reduced, succulent, ovate, pinkish with a yellowish tinge; inner tepals mid to deep yellow, erect, closely appressed against filaments, 18–22 mm long, obovate, the apex obtuse and with short mucro, or emarginate; staminal filaments much exceeding perianth, pale pink, anthers creamish yellow; style much exceeding perianth and the filaments, pink, stigma lobes bright green; pericarpel (at anthesis) not tuberculate, spineless or with 1 weak, slender retrorse spine. Fruit solitary, obovoid to somewhat pyriform, 20–32 mm long, 15–22 mm diam., not tuberculate, dark reddish purple at maturity, succulent and juicy. Seeds developing in Australia (not seen by author), flattened, notched at hilum, 3–5.5 mm diam.
In Western Australia collected from edge of a field with Maireana pyramidata, and in Eucalyptus camaldulensis woodland with Rhagodia eremaea along the Gascoyne River. At Nerimbera in Queensland, it was collected from a Eucalyptus woodland, on a levee, with loam on alluvium.
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Moist or dry thickets, often in coastal thickets, mostly on the Pacific coastal plain in Guatemala, at elevations up to 1,350 metres. It is almost always found in medium or dense shade under low trees.
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