Botanist Karl Moritz Schumann named it after Wilhelm Lenninghaus (1845-1918),[1] a native of North Rhine-Westphalia who, in the 1880s, left his hometown of Ennepetal and emigrated to Porto Alegre, Brazil, where he became Guillermo Lenninghaus, and collected cacti for the German grower Haage.

Parodia leninghausii is native to the Rio Grande do Sul province in the south of Brazil.

Parodia leninghausii shows cactus species nomadism; it was successively included in genus Pilocereus K. Schumann 1895, Malacocarpus (K.Schumann) Britton & Rose 1922, Notocactus (K.Schumann) A.Berger 1929, Eriocactus (K.Schumann) Backeberg 1942, and finally ended up in Parodia (K. Schumann) F.H.Brandt 1982.

The young plants are globular, then columnar up to 1m tall, 12 cm diameter and about 30 ribs.

In cultivation, it is preferable to keep a cold temperature, but more than 2 °C (36 °F) This plant has won the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.