The plants are miniature, shaped like balls and covered with tiny white spines and, throughout the summer, large magenta flowers.

The species entered scientific discourse in 1952, when Oklahoma professor Norman Boke found the hitherto undescribed cacti blooming on Mrs Crosby's windowsill.

The species was finally rediscovered, growing sunken in the gravel on limestone slabs in the Chihuahuan Desert, by George S. Hinton and Jonas Lüthy in 1996.

They arrived in a poor condition due to the delay and fumigation at the Mexico-US border; Cutak photographed them, and they soon died.

[3][6][7] By the time Cutak photographed them, the plants had been deformed from improper growing conditions, which made it even more difficult to identify the genus.

[9] In the publications of Backeberg and Bravo-Hollis & Sánchez-Mejorada, the photograph was rotated 90°, giving the misleading impression that the cactus flowered apically (from the top) rather than laterally (from the side), potentially influencing its classification as Normanbokea.

[3] Hinton described it as Mammillaria luethyi, naming the species after Lüthy, who had "after a flash of intuition pointed to its exact location on his map and spoke, 'This is where the plant grows.'".

These pecies all have sunken fruits, numerous white radial spines, and are restricted to limestone habitats in eastern Mexico.

M. luethyi bears a superficial resemblance to M. saboae from the series Longiflorae, but the latter favors volcanic rock and has different spination and larger flowers.

[2][12] Mammillaria luethyi is found in the Chihuahuan Desert in the north of the Mexican state of Coahuila,[13] at elevations of around 800 m.[1] These plants thrive on horizontal slabs of limestone, nestled deeply within an extremely shallow substrate just 1.5–2.0 cm thick, composed of sandy clay and fine gravel,[2] with which the tiny plants blend.

The conversation status assessors believe that if the two locations became known, the threat from amateur collectors would lead to the species quickly becoming critically endangered or extinct.

[14] These plants were propagated at the Cante Botanical Gardens in San Miguel de Allende under the supervision of Charlie Glass.

[14] A harsh winter in 1997/1998 caused significant frost damage to the botanical garden's collections, prompting an urgent need for funding.

Within a few years, M. luethyi entered European cactus collections, and propagation efforts, including tissue culture, led to hundreds of plants being reproduced.

Grafted offsets soon became widely available in Europe, initially at a high cost, but their rapid growth and reproduction made them more accessible.

[5] Janeba and Lüthy consider this a successful approach to introducing a new species into cultivation while preserving wild populations and avoiding the trade of wild-collected specimens.