Habit: a genus of two very different species in appearance: most shoots subterranean, ±spinescent short shoots (B. spinescens); hairs uniseriate, short triangular base, elongated apical cell. Leaves clustered, either stem-clasping with margins revolute (B.spinescens), or in basal rosettes with margins flat (B. diminuta). Inflorescences terminal, basitonic; usually single, regular, bisexual flowers, with a fleshy, lobed basal nectary and an involucre of 2 rows of unequal deltoid scales at the base of short thick (to 10 mm only) hairy pedicels to 10 mm. Flowers are held initially erect but then droop below the foliage. Sepal lobes imbricate. Petals green-yellow; corolla tube either centrally cohering or imbricated; outer surface hairy. Stamens: anthers versatile, white, smaller than filaments, often prominently exserted; pollen pink-mauve; filaments variably flared. Pistil: ovary thin walled mostly bilocular with ovules inserted in two rows per loculus; style longer than ovary, hairy at least basally, and elongating in femal phase, stigma then eventually bilobed or small capitate. Fruit globose, loculicidally dehiscent, 8–14 mm long, brown, dense silky hairy with seeds remaining in two rows in each chamber. Seeds lozenge shaped or angular globose, glossy and minutely pitted like orange peel (colliculate).
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