Spreading to erect shrub to c. 1.7 m high, older plants with well-developed trunk to c. 70 cm high and 10 cm diam. Stem segments firmly attached, elliptic or broadly elliptic to obovate, compressed, not tuberculate, 9–25 cm long, (3.5–) 5–10 cm wide, light green to mid green, dull, minutely muricate, the protuberances to c. 0.1 mm long. Areoles closely set, (25–) 30–60 per stem segment face, 10–25 mm apart, circular or subcircular, 3–4 mm wide, with wool creamish. Leaves succulent, terete, conical or elongate-conical, 3–5 mm long, minutely tomentose, caducous. Spines often absent from lower half of segments, upper areoles with 1–3 per areole on scattered areoles, the longer spines 5–17 mm long, 0.5–0.7 mm wide at base, microscopically barbed, usually reflexed, occasionally erect near apex of cladode, terete, straight, not barbed, pale yellow, ageing white. Glochids 2–3.5 mm long, mostly restricted to upper end of areoles, yellow to yellow-brown. Flowers 50–90 mm diam.; outer tepals crimson tinged, succulent; inner tepals bright yellow, the outer series with median red stripes, widely spreading, obovate, 20–25 mm long, 17–20 mm wide, the apex obtuse and often erose; staminal filaments white, anthers pale yellow; style white, stigma lobes pale green; pericarpel (at anthesis) tuberculate, spineless or occasional areoles with a slender weak spines. Fruit solitary or proliferating in chains of up to 5 fruits, usually long-persisting, obovoid, 50–70 mm long, 20–30 mm diam., not tuberculate, umbilicus deep, with scattered, weak, deciduous spines, minutely papillate, reddish purple, splitting longitudinally on one side when ripe, succulent, the fruit usually sterile, rarely ripening. Seeds 3–5 mm long, white to pale brown, ? sterile.
Widely naturalised across in semi-arid to arid inland regions of Australia. A weed in open woodland, mallee, shrubland, rocky slopes, roadsides, old homesteads, and near streams.
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