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"Vermillion Cob Cactus" comes from the mountains of Bolivia at about 3,400m (10,370ft.) altitude. It’s a charming plant with magnificently coloured, 4cm (1.5") flowers which stay open, each for a couple of days. This variety, leucocyphus (L. leuco = white + G. cyphus = bent) presumably refers to its white, appressed, spines curved backward, was proposed by Backeberg in the 1960s but is not recognized now. The species was first described by Hooker in 1847 as Echinocactus cinnabarina. In 1922 Britton & Rose transferred Hooker's Echinocactus c. to the genus Lobivia, and that is the name under which I bought my stock of seed in 1984. But in 1853, Labouret had transferred Hooker's 1847 Echinocactus c. to Echinopsis c. and that is the designation that the ICSG has proposed to resume now, as reflected in Anderson (2001). This photo is dated 1989, when the plant was about 5 years old, still in a 10cm (4") pot.