Huernia barbata (Masson) Haw.

Dwarf succulent forming dense clump up to 300 mm diam. Stems 10-60(-100) mm long, 6-20 mm thick, shortly decumbent, often very stout, grey-green sometimes mottled with purple-red; tubercles 4-6 mm long, deltoid, spreading, laterally flattened and joined into 4-5 angles along stem. Inflorescence of 1-5 flowers developing in gradual succession, arising near base of stem on short peduncle (up to 5 mm long) with fine lanceolate bracts 2-3 mm long; pedicel 4-12 mm long, 1.5 mm thick, ascending to spreading with ascending apex, holding flower facing upwards or outwards; sepals 3-8 mm long, 1.0-1.5 mm broad at base, attenuate. Corolla 15-65 mm long, 14-60 mm diam., tubular-campanulate to bicampanulate; outside smooth, cream to greenish sometimes speckled with maroon, with 3-5 raised longitudinal veins running from lobes to base of tube; inside cream to pale yellow with rounded maroon spots becoming larger towards mouth of tube and changing to narrow concentric broken lines or plain maroon in lower half of tube, covered except in lower third of tube (sometimes only around mouth of tube) with minute maroon spherical-tipped papillae (densely crowded towards margins of lobes) interspersed with larger obtuse conical papillae each tipped by clavate bristle 1-3 mm long (longest in mouth of tube becoming shorter on lobes and disappearing around middle of lobes); tube 5-20 mm long, 10-12 mm broad at mouth, widening towards mouth from cupular base, cylindrical, often with corolla somewhat thickened towards mouth; lobes 3-18 mm long, 6-17 mm broad at base, ascending to recurved, narrowly deltate and usually longer than wide, acuminate to attenuate. Corona 7-9 mm tall, 5-8 mm broad, without basal stipe; outer lobes spreading on base of tube and mostly fused to it, fused together into disc with crenulate to raised margin (forming shallow plate around gynostegium) to 5-lobed with each lobe deeply bifid, deep maroon; inner lobes 3-5 mm long, deep maroon to cream or pink and mottled with brown, adpressed to backs of anthers near their base, rising above their apices and connivent then diverging, dorsiventrally flattened around laterally broadened base becoming terete above and tapering gradually to fine apex.