Scandent or prostrate, nonspinous (rarely with some small spines on stem below), much branched with deciduous cladodes in feathery fascicles, bearing solitary flowers. Rhizome woody with numerous swollen roots, ±300-600 mm long and ±20 mm in diameter, smaller in young plants. Stems spineless, or with some brittle spines below, glabrous, reddish brown. Branches widely spaced, laxly zigzagging, in turn producing numerous short branchlets bearing the cladode fascicles. Cladodes unequally long, 15-30-nate, ±5-10 mm long, smooth, apiculate, somewhat curved, greyish green, deciduous. Flowers apical, solitary or rarely 2-or 3-nate, beside a cladode fascicle; pedicel ±5 mm long with disc below perianth. Tepals ±5 mm, broadly linear, white with a brown central stripe, forming a tube, recurved above. Stamens erect, filaments flat, attenuate above, abruptly narrowed below, forming basal spurs; anthers orange or yellow. Ovary oblong-ovoid, shortly stipitate, with 6-8 ovules in each locule, style long, stigmas short, spreading. Berry several-seeded, ±10 mm in diameter, pinkish red. The young cladodes appear from March to April; flowering from May to June; fruits ripen in September.
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Soft shrublet, up to 1 m tall, sprawling or scrambling, roots long and swollen from a woody rhizome, spineless or with a few, short, brittle spines below. Cladodes 15-30 in feathery fascicles, filiform, internodes usually bare. Flowers nodding, 1-3 in axils, tepals cohering below, filaments perpendicular.
Shrublet to 1 m, sprawling or scrambling in bush. Cladodes fascicled, filiform. Flowers nodding, 1-3 in axils, tepals fused below, filaments straight.
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