Leafless bush, 1/2-3/4 ft. high, with rigid spine-tipped branches 1-2 lin. thick, opposite and diverging from each other at an angle of 100-165 degrees, the primary and secondary being 3-6 in. long and the ultimate 1/2-2 in. long, all ending in an acute spine, glabrous, probably glaucous, with a somewhat succulent bark, which at the tips or on old branchlets dries and separates into rings by the formation of transverse cracks all round the branch; leaves very rudimentary, deciduous, opposite, 1/3 lin. long, sessile or nearly so, ovate or deltoid-ovate, acute, glabrous, blackish-purple; cymes lateral on the ultimate branchlets, small and dense, sessile or subsessile, 2-3 lin. long and 2 1/2-4 lin. in diam., 3-to several-flowered; bracts scale-like, 1/3 lin. long and about one-third as long as the involucre, linear-oblong, obtuse, glabrous, purple; involucre 1 lin. in diam. and as much in depth, but appearing longer than broad, somewhat urceolate, being slightly constricted under the glands, glabrous outside, pubescent within, purple, with 5 glands and 5 minute oblong ciliate lobes; glands not quite contiguous, ascending-spreading, 1/3-1/2 lin. in their greater diam., transversely oblong or elliptic-oblong, two-lipped, from the inner margin being turned up, concave in front of it, entire; ovary and capsule not seen.
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