Asparagus acocksii Jessop

Large, shrubby plants or scandent, up to 3 m high but short and compact in south-eastern Cape. Rhizome not seen; roots tuberous (fide Reid). Stems more or less straight, becoming furrowed with age, ±10 mm in diameter, lower nodes with swollen buds bearing short, broad, recurved spines and swollen bracts. Young branches shortly and densely pubescent, glabrous with age, the flaking dry white skin stippled with minute black dots. Spines present below branches, branchlets and cladode fascicles, short, broad, hard, patent, acute, ±10 mm long, decreasing in size up the plant. Cladodes varying in size and number, numerous(up to 40) in a fascicle, filiform, curved, apiculate, ±5 mm long in typical form, but up to 35 mm long in Zululand form. Flowers in short, simple or complex, branched, delicate racemes, drying black, contemporary with cladodes, strongly scented; tepals spreading, narrowly obovate, ±3 mm long, attenuated into a long pericladium, white; stalk thin, ±5 mm long, articulated near base. Stamens with yellow anthers. Ovary with ±4 ovules in each locule; ovoid; style very short with 3 short spreading stigmas. Berries ±6 mm in diameter.