Gasteria pillansii Kensit

Plants acaulescent, decumbent to erect, 50-200 mm tall and 60-400 mm in diameter, proliferating from subterraneous stolons and forming dense clumps (comprising 10 to 150 plants per clone) up to 1 m in diameter. Roots succulent. Leaves distichous, 20-200 mm long and 15-50 mm broad at the base, lorate, erectly spreading or patent; adaxial surface becoming somewhat channelled in the dry season; abaxial surface convex; both surfaces spotted with immersed tubercles in obscure transverse bands; epidermis asperulous, rarely with few domed tubercles; margin cartilaginous, tuberculate or crenulate; apex obtuse to acute, mucronate, rarely truncate or retuse. Inflorescence racemose, one to three per plant, spreading and slightly curved, 0.06-1.2(4.65) m long, rarely with a pair of side branches; bracts 7-9 mm long, 4-6 mm broad at the base. Flowers laxly and secundly arranged in upper half (12 to 40 per raceme), pedicel 9-20 mm long; floral bracts 4-10 mm long and 2-4 mm broad at the base. Perianth 25-45(-50) mm long and 6-8 mm in diameter, stipitate for 3 mm, obscurely gasteriform basally for a third or less of its length; the gasteriform portion pink, globose (sometimes indistinct), or globose-elliptic and slightly constricted above the ovary; thence gradually enlarging again to the same diameter as gasteriform portion (rarely clavate); tube white, with green striations; apices obtuse, erectly spreading or becoming recurved, light pink with green median stripes, membranous margin of the three inner segments abruptly constricted 4 mm from the base. Stamens 22-32 mm long, filaments slightly flattened, becoming contracted after anthesis; anthers orange-yellow, 2-3(-5) mm long included or exserted up to 5 mm; pollen yellow. Ovary 6-8 mm long, style 18-25(-30) mm long, stigma minute. Capsule oblong 15-23 mm long, 7 mm broad. Seeds 4-5 mm long, 2.5 mm wide. Flowering time November to April.

It is a subtropical plant.