Huernia praestans N.E.Br.

Small succulent forming clump 50-300 mm diam. Stems 10-50 mm long, 7-10 mm thick (excluding teeth), decumbent to erect, grey-green; tubercles 3-5 mm long, spreading, deltoid, slightly laterally flattened and joined towards base into 4-5 angles along stem, tapering gradually into slender tooth. Inflorescences 1 per stem arising near base, of 1-5 flowers developing in gradual succession from short peduncle with small lanceolate bracts 1-2 mm long without lateral teeth; pedicel 4-12 mm long, 1.5 mm thick, ascending to hold flower facing partly upwards; sepals 3-6 mm long, 1.5 mm broad at base, narrowly acuminate. Corolla 35-55 mm diam., rotate with small tube in centre; outside smooth, cream suffused or lightly spotted with red, with 3 raised darker longitudinal veins along each lobe; inside cream to pale yellow, on sides of tube and around mouth irregularly transversely spotted or concentrically lined with maroon, solid maroon in base of tube, covered on lobes and annulus and inside mouth of tube with obtuse conical papillae each tipped with a clavate to nearly globose dark maroon bristle (together up to 1.5 mm long); tube 5-8 mm long, 7-8 mm broad at mouth, cupular, pentagonal, mouth emphasised by raised slightly thickened annulus (forced upwards by strong reflexion of corolla below lobes); lobes 7-9 mm long, 11-13 mm broad at base, spreading to reflexed, deltate, acute, often very slightly convex above but margins not folded back. Corona 4-5 mm tall, ±4 mm broad, pale yellow spotted with maroon, without basal stipe; outer lobes 1-2 mm long, rectangular, emarginate to obtusely bilobed, spreading on base of tube and partly fused to it; inner lobes ±3 mm long, adpressed to backs of anthers then rising somewhat connivent above them and then recurved, subulate, sometimes with dorsal gibbosity at base.