Plants compact, to 2 cm tall, spreading to 6 cm diam. with several crowded branchlets; roots tuberous, to 10 cm long x 1 cm thick, napiform, dark brown; stems short, internodes much reduced or invisible; leaves perennial, 6-8 per branch, flat on the ground, pairs ± equal, each leaf to 20 mm long x 18 mm broad x 3 mm thick, very broadly lanceolate to almost mitriform, flat to slightly concave above, slightly keeled below toward the tip, highly succulent, (dark) bluish-green with a metallic lustre, sometimes flushed with red, covered with shining, conical, prominent papillae. Flower aestival, single, scentless; bracts half the size of the leaves and proportionately narrower, pedicel 0.5-1.5 cm long, sepals 5, unequal, ca. 6 mm long, 5 mm broad, leaf-like, petals in 2-3 series, to 20 mm long, 3 mm broad, acuminate at the tips, rich pink shading to white basally, stamens ca. 80, conically connivent at anthesis, relaxing in two days, filaments white, 4 mm long, anthers pale yellow; nectaries 5, discrete, dark green; ovary with a moat-like depression near the nectaries, rising in the middle to a cone 2- tall, surmounted by 5 subulate green stigmas 3 mm long. Capsule 4-5 mm diam. x 2 mm high, flat on the base, 5-locular, greyish to blackish, fragile, quickly decomposing; seeds 0.90 x 0.65 x 0.40 mm, reddish-brown, lustrous, evenly covered with small rounded tubercles. Seedlings forming tubers in three months and quickly achieving the adult shape, flowering the first summer from the 4th or 5th leaf-pairs.
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