This is a small cactus that can get a bit over a foot tall, eventually, and only about 4 inches wide. Plants will produce offsets. Funnel-shaped flowers appear at the top of the stems in spring and early summer. The flowers are orange to reddish.

Grow in morning sun, afternoon shade, or filtered all day. Because it is a smaller plant, it is best grown in a container in well-drained cactus mix. Being a warm season grower, you water moderately in summer when it is growing, and back off in winter.

The genus, Matucana, is named for a small village in central Peru near which the type specimen for the genus grows, presumably Matucana, Huarochirí Province.The specific epithet, celendinensis, refers to Celendín Province, where this cactus is native. This species is sometimes considered subordinate to Matucana intertexta (intertexta means "interwoven" and possibly refers to the spination of the species).

Native to stony slopes among moss and grasses between Celendín and Balsas in the Celendín Province of the Cajamarca Region at an elevation of about 7,550 feet in Northern Peru.

Matucana intertexta on iNaturalist