Erect shrub to 1–3(–4.5) m high with distinct trunk, trunk to 90 cm long, 15–30 cm diam. Terminal cladodes compressed, broadly obovate to suborbicular, 10–30 cm long, 7.5–20 cm wide, dull, usually grey-green, minutely whitish-pubescent (hairs 0.3–0.5 mm long); areoles 30–80 per cladode face, 0.9–2 cm apart, filled with brown wool and brownish glochids; spines spreading to deflexed, 2–6 per areole (8–10 on older cladodes and irregularly curving), white, filiform, flexible, 1.5–4 cm long, c. 0.2 mm wide near base. Flowers c. 5 cm diam.; petaloids spreading, yellow, obovate-cuneate, mucronate, denticulate; stamens yellow; hypanthium tuberculate. Fruit barrel-shaped, 2.5–3.5 (–)5 cm long and wide, tuberculate, minutely pubescent, spinose, light yellowish to reddish. Flowers late spring–summer.
MuM. Also naturalised SA, Qld. Indigenous to central Mexico. Known in Victoria by 1 collection (1978) from a roadside at Merbein West, but also noted in abandoned garden at Hattah.
