Very strange-looking small cactus with whitish pectinate spines and magenta flowers from the Chihuahuan Desert of northern Mexico. The 40-60 spines per areole are arranged left-right in two distichous rows. Each areole is supposed to look like a double-headed axe (the name Pelecyphora comes from the Greek for "hatchet bearer"). The plant looks a little like Mammillaria pectinifera or bertholdii on steroids. The white spines may cover up only some or nearly all of the green body of the plant. Areoles are dimorphic, with spines on the tips (broad and flat as they may be) and fuzz and flowers coming from the axils beneath them. Extra chunky tap root.

There are two species of Pelecyphora. Both are geophytes from the Chihuahuan Desert. This species (aselliformis) grows in San Luis Potosí west of the Sierra Madre Oriental, and the other (strobiliformis) grows in two additional states, as well as east of the Sierra. This species is the only one of the two where the pectinate arrangement of the spines is immediately obvious on mature plants.

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