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Parodia leninghausii is a South American cactus, commonly grown as a houseplant, known for its golden spines and yellow flowers. Keep it in full sun with well-drained soil, water in summer and keep it dry in winter.
Parodia leninghausii is a species of South American cactus commonly found as a houseplant. Common names include lemon ball cactus, golden ball cactus and yellow tower cactus.
Botanist Karl Moritz Schumann named it after Wilhelm Lenninghaus (1845-1918), a native of North Rhine-Westphalia who, in the 1880s, left his hometown of Ennepetal and emigrated to Porto Alegre, Brazil, where he became Guillermo Lenninghaus, and collected cacti for the German grower Haage.
Like most cacti, Parodia leninghausii needs well drained soil, sunny exposure, regular watering in summer and no watering in winter. In temperate climates, it may be placed outside in a warm sunny position during the summer months. In winter the plant tolerates frost at −4 °C (25 °F) if kept totally dry. In cultivation, it is preferable to keep a cold temperature, but more than 2 °C (36 °F).
This plant has won the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Golden Powder Puff · Cactus · Parodia crassigibba · Balloon Cactus · Cactus · Cactus · Parodia
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Parodia leninghausii by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
