Huernia kennedyana Lavranos

Dwarf succulent forming dense mats of tightly packed stems up to 300 mm diam. Stems 10-35 mm long, 10-25 mm thick, decumbent to erect, ± globose, grey-to purple-green; tubercles 1-3 mm long, low conical, abruptly narrowing into short bristle 1-2 mm long, joined into (6-)7-9 low ridges along stem to give it tessellate appearance. Inflorescence of 1-5 flowers developing in gradual succession, arising in middle to lower half of stem on short peduncle (up to 5 mm long) with fine lanceolate bracts 1-2 mm long without lateral teeth; pedicel 4-9(-15) mm long, 1.5 mm thick, ascending, holding flower facing upwards; sepals 3-4 mm long, 1.5 mm broad at base, ovate, acuminate. Corolla 6-8 mm long, 20-25 mm diam., shallowly bowl-shaped; outside obscurely papillate, pale pink, with 3-5 raised longitudinal veins running down lobes; inside irregularly transversely lined with red-brown to dark maroon on cream to dull yellow (lines coarsest on lobes becoming shorter and finer towards base of tube), with many terete lanceolate-obtuse to slightly clavate sometimes minutely apiculate papillae up to 3 mm long and cream suffused or dotted with reddish towards tips on lobes and for 3-5 mm into tube, below this abruptly replaced with similarly shaped but minute transparent papillae <0.5 mm long petering out above corona; tube 5-6 mm long, 9-10 mm broad at mouth, shallowly cupular, not pentagonal; lobes 6-8 mm long, 7-12 mm broad at base, spreading to recurved, deltate, acuminate. Corona 4.5-5.0 mm tall, 4-5 mm broad, raised above base of tube on small basal stipe; outer lobes ±0.7 mm long, 2 mm broad, spreading parallel to base of tube and slightly above it (not fused to it), ± rectangular to slightly notched in centre, cream to pale red, raised above base of corolla on short stipe; inner lobes 2-3 mm long, yellow (slightly paler towards apices), adpressed to anthers in their lower half then rising up connivent and diverging towards apices, somewhat dorsiventrally flattened with swollen gibbosity at base, tapering and becoming terete above with slightly clavate finely bristly apex.