Greek pelekys—axe, phoros—bearing, referring to the axe-like tubercles.
Body low-growing, solitary or in clusters, more or less spherical. Tubercles either laterally compressed with comb-like areolar spines, or flattened on upper and lower surfaces and incurving at the tip, sometimes hatchet-like. Areoles with 2 regions the upper spiny, the lower woolly and bearing flowers, the 2 connected by groove. Flowers funnel- to bell-shaped, arising near axils of tubercles towards the apex of the body, purplish; tube naked; summer. Fruit small, dry.
The two species in the genus are both cultivated and easily distinguished from one another: P. aselliformis Ehrenb. from C Mexico (San Luis Petosí) with the comb-like spines along the tips of the tubercles and P. strobiliformis (Werderm.) Kreuz. from NE Mexico (Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas) with its body bearing a close resemblance to a pine cone.
Tubercles either laterally compresseed and with comb-like spines or dorsiventrally compressed and overlapping similar to a pine cone.
2 species from NE Mexico.
Source: (1997). Cactaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 2. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 1. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
