Often surrounded by grasses and flowers, this 3–8-inch tall, cylindrical cactus, single or with 13–15 stems, beats the competition with flamboyant rose-pink to magenta flowers. The dark-green stems have 10–19 ribs covered with a network of thin, lacy, comb-like, white spines. Flowers grow from spiny, white-woolly pedicels on the sides of the upper stem, not at the apex.

FLOWERS: May–June. The showy 2–4-inch wide (5–10 cm) flowers cluster around the sides on 1–1 1/2-inch long (2.5–3.8 cm), spiny floral stems; anthers yellow, stigma lobes green. Fruits green with conspicuous white cobwebby areoles and spines. Cactus flowers with thin, delicate, pointed petals (tepals) are adapted for bee pollination.

SPINES: Each narrow, oblong, brownish areole has 15-21+ radial spines, 1/4-inch long (4.5–6 mm), and usually no central spines (if present, 1–3 similar to radials). Spines are distinctively thin, white, and bristly.

HABITAT: Sandy, rocky limestone soils of shortgrass prairies, desert grasslands and scrub, pinyon-juniper-oak woodlands.

ELEVATION: 2,500–5,000 feet.

RANGE: CO, KS, NM, OK, TX.

SIMILAR SPECIES: The mound-forming Strawberry Cactus, E. stramineus, in southern NM, is covered with straw-colored spines with central spines to 4-inches long. Pink-flowering Hedgehog Cactus, E. fendleri, nearly statewide, has erect stems single or in small clumps, 1 central spine 1–2-inches long, and radials that do not cover the stem.

NM COUNTIES: Eastern NM in low- to mid-elevation, dry habitats: Chaves, Curry, De Baca, Eddy, Harding, Lea, Quay, Roosevelt, San Miguel, Union.