Euphorbia albipollinifera L.C.Leach

Plant: a dwarf succulent herb, with a depressed subglobose body and a subtuberous tap root. Body almost discoid, 22-30 mm diam. with a tessellately tuberculate central area; tubercles unequally hexagonal, scarcely prominent. Branches relatively few and widely spaced, successively developed from the tubercle axils, erectly to widely spreading, prominently tuberculate, almost cylindric or slightly tapering, up to 75 mm long, 10 mm diam. at the enlarged base; sometimes flowering when less than 10 mm long. Leaves rudimentary, estipulate, fleshy, ovate, acute, concave (not folded), fleeting, leaving a prominent, circular white scar. Inflorescence axillary from near the apex of the branches; peduncles erectly spreading, up to 20 mm long, subpersistent becoming thin and hard but scarcely spine-like, bearing a few distant bracts and a solitary, bisexual cyathium carried on a short stipe obscurely jointed to the apex of the peduncle; bracts oblong, obtuse, minutely ciliate, concave, ca. 2 mm long, fleeting, leaving a prominent lunate scar. Involucre campanulate, ca. 7.5 mm diam. including the glands, glabrous, green, lightly red striate; inside glabrous except for some hairs below the inner margin of the glands at the apex of the obsolescent septa, which also usually carry a small subplumose bracteole. Glands 5, distant, thick and fleshy, almost truncate-globose, ca. circular seen from above, ca. 2 mm diam., deeply concave, brownish becoming green, bottle-green with copious nectar in the cavity, sometimes with 2 or 3 minute teeth on the outer margin. Lobes 5, transversely oblong, usually somewhat emarginate, irregularly laciniate toothed, glabrous but minutely ciliate, green, ca. 1.5 mm wide, closely contiguous at the base of the glands. Male flowers far exserted, widely spreading, successively developed; pedicels, pubescent, ca. 2.5 mm long; filaments glabrous, white, ca. 1.25 mm long; anther thecae red; pollen snow-white. Bracteoles subplumose, ca. 2 mm long. Female flower shortly pedicellate; ovary ca. ovoid, softly crisped hairy; styles stout, green, free to the base, spreading recurved. Capsule 3-lobed, subglobose, ca. 6 mm diam., 5 mm high, erect, just exserted from the involucre, softly crisped pubescent, but often glabrous at dehiscence. Seed ca. broadly ovoid, obscurely 4-angled, densely echinulate and raggedly rugulose, less densely on the ventral face and smooth each side of the suture and below the acute apex, ca. 3 mm x 2.5 mm.