Succulent suberect or more usually straggling to ascending stiff herb or shrub 0.6–5 m high, usually much branched, sometimes forming dense thickets; once reported to have an underground rootstock; stems thick, succulent, glabrous, green, often white-dotted and sometimes with purplish or reddish bands; sap with strong acrid or resinous smell.. Leaves few, near stem apex, or absent at flowering time, succulent, ovate or elliptic, 1.5–4.5 cm long, 0.3–2 cm wide, broadly cuneate to attenuate into petioloid base, margins entire, apex rounded, shortly acuminate-apiculate, short-lived.. Capitula discoid, 2–16 in congested terminal subumbelliform cymes; involucre cylindrical, 10–16 mm long, 3–4 mm in diameter; bracts of calyculus 1–3, lanceolate, 0.5–1.5 mm long; phyllaries 5, greenish, sometimes glaucous, usually tinged with purple or brown at least near the apex, 10–16 mm long.. Ray florets absent; disc florets pink to mauve or purple, rarely white, corolla 14.5–22 mm long, tube glabrous, expanded in upper part, lobes 1.2–1.7 mm long.. Achenes 4–6.5 mm long, hairy; pappus 14–21.5 mm long in flower, 20–32 mm long in fruit.
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