[2] Harrisia tortuosa grows as a shrub with upright or later arched or prostrate, dark green shoots that are up to 1 meter long with diameters of 2 to 4 centimeters.

The six to ten pale and light-colored marginal spines reach a length of up to 2 centimeters.

[3] It is native to low altitudes in Uruguay, Paraguay, northeastern Argentina at elevations of 80-300 meters.

[2][5] The first description as Cereus tortuosus was made in 1838 by Christoph Friedrich Otto and Albert Gottfried Dietrich.

Nathaniel Lord Britton and Joseph Nelson Rose placed the species in the genus Harrisia in 1920.