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This little Mexican species is chiefly remarkable for its fragile, numerous, twig-like joints, thickly dotted with tubercles and numerous spirally-arranged cushions of reddish bristles, with long, grey spines. It does not flower under cultivation. Requires stove treatment.

The generic name is descriptive of the chief feature in these stems, namely, the closely-set, spirally-arranged tubercles or mamillae, which vary considerably in the different kinds, but are always present in some form or other. Some kinds have stems only 1 in. high by 2/3 in. in diameter, and the tubercles hidden from view by the star-shaped cushions of reddish or white spines.

A very distinct dwarf kind, with globular stems 2 in. high and about 3 in. wide, clothed with spirally-arranged rows or ridges of tubercles, similar to those shown in the figure of E. hexaedrophorus, except that, in the former, there are no spines on the mature tubercles, although, when young, they have each a little cluster of fine spines.