any of 25 species in the genus Parodia, family Cactaceae, native in grasslands of South America. Small, globose to cylindroid, they are commonly cultivated as potted plants. P. scopa and P. leninghausii (silver ball and golden ball cacti, respectively) are most common and are valued for their woolly hair. These and other hairy species have small, often yellow to red flowers, sometimes only about 1 cm (0.5 inch) in diameter. Another group, not hairy, has larger flowers, to about 6 cm (2.4 inches).
Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.
If you think a reference to this article on "ball cactus" will enhance your Web site,
blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article,
and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.
You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.
We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.
Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.