Melocactus neryi (Cactus)

This little-known plant has a spherical grayish-green body, slightly depressed at the apex. It has deeply furrowed longitudinal ribs, from which slightly curved and rather robust light gray spines emerge. At a certain age of the plant, when the cactus stops growing, a whitish spherical cephalium develops at the apex of the plant, formed by red bristles, from which small light or dark magenta flowers with thin petals bloom. The cephalium tends to grow, not in diameter, but only in height, assuming a characteristic cylindrical shape, that also gives an idea of the age of the plant.