Neolloydia conoidea is known for most of the cactus lowers. It is an easy-to-recognise plant by its cylindrical appearance, greenish stem, white radial and black central spines, as well as by the wholly centre. The genus Neolloydia was first described by Britton and Rose in 1922. To date, there are only two taxa in this genus, N. conoidea and N. matehualensis. Dave Donati and George S. Hinton have described N. inexpectata in 2012 from Tamaulipas as new species. Neolloydia conoidea was first described by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. It is distributed form Central Mexico (Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas, Querétaro and Zacatecas states) to the South part of the USA (Taxas, in the Big Bend), mostly in the Chihuahua Desert, but also present in the thorn bush vegetation of Tamaulipas. This taxon has a high tolerance against environmental conditions, also in culture, thus tolerates the cultivating mistakes easily. It is worth to keep plant from many different populations as there are major differences among the populations located far away from each other.
