Small succulent forming dense to diffuse clump to 0.5 m diam. Stems 15-120 mm long, 8-20 mm thick (excluding teeth), erect to decumbent, grey-green usually mottled with purple; tubercles 4-7 mm long, deltoid, laterally flattened and joined into 4-5(-6) angles along stem, narrowing abruptly into slender tooth. Inflorescence of 1-3 flowers developing in gradual succession, arising from short peduncle (up to 5 mm long) with filiform bracts 3-4 mm long; pedicel 15-20 mm long, 2 mm thick, ascending then spreading to hold flower facing horizontally; sepals 8-10 mm long, 2 mm broad at base, ovate, acuminate. Corolla (25-)35-45(-50) mm diam., rotate, glabrous; outside cream often mottled with reddish behind annulus and on lobes with 1 heavy (+2 fainter) raised longitudinal veins running down centre of each lobe; inside cream transversely and irregularly lined with red to maroon on lobes changing to ± circular dots on shiny annulus often coalescing there and uniformly red to maroon in tube, with minute fine spike-like papillae on lobes but otherwise ± free of bristles and papillae (especially in tube); tube 6-7 mm long, 6-8 mm broad at mouth, cupular, cylindrical, mouth formed by raised annulus (annulus only slightly thickened and forced upwards by strong reflexion of corolla below bases of lobes); lobes 10-15 mm long, 15-20 mm broad at base, spreading, deltate, shortly acuminate. Corona 3.5-4.0 mm tall, 5.0-6.5 mm broad, without basal stipe; outer lobes 1.5-2.0 mm long, deeply to shallowly bilobed into obtuse to truncate lobules, spreading to touch base of tube but not fused to it, cream with red to maroon margins; inner lobes 0.7-1.0 mm long, red to maroon with bright yellow dorsal gibbosity, adpressed to backs of anthers, shorter than to slightly exceeding them and not meeting at centre, tapering from broad transverse dorsal gibbosity to narrowly obtuse smooth apex.
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