[4] The plant blooms in April to June, with flowers that are pale greenish yellow to yellow-green with midstripes of green or rose-pink to pale brown, flowers are 2.5 to 6.2 centimeters long and in diameter.

It is found in along the Missouri River in the tallgrass prairie and shortgrass Great Plains, from Texas to Montana and the Dakotas, and in the Rocky Mountains woodlands of Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), pinyon-juniper, and Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii) west of it.

[8] The specific epithet missouriensis refers to the occurrence of the species near the Missouri River.

In 1978, the species was reclassified as Escobaria missouriensis by David Richard Hunt.

David Aquino & Daniel Sánchez moved the species to Pelecyphora based on phylogenetic studies in 2022.