Succulent forming clump to 0.5 m diam., often rhizomatous. Stems 30-100 mm long, 10-25 mm thick (excluding teeth), stout, decumbent and often subterranean for some distance then erect above ground, often uniformly grey-green but sometimes mottled with red-brown; tubercles 3-6 mm long, joined into 4 very broadly obtuse angles along stem with slight groove between angles, basally almost cylindrical then tapering into conical to laterally flattened deltoid acute often ascending tooth, sometimes with stipular denticles. Inflorescence 1 per stem in lower half, of 3-10 flowers opening in rapid succession from short peduncle (<10 mm long); pedicel 10-15 mm long, 2.5-3.0 mm thick, ascending to spreading and holding flowers facing ± horizontally; sepals 3-5 mm long, 1.5-2.0 mm broad at base, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate. Corolla 25-35 mm diam., rotate; outside smooth, pale green; inside irregularly rugulose-papillate, white to cream (greenish), irregularly blotched with purple-brown; tube 1.5-2.0 mm long, 6-10 mm broad, shallowly cupular, containing base of gynostegium, with corolla distinctly thickened around mouth; lobes 10-14 mm long, 7-10 mm broad at base, ovate, acute, often somewhat reflexed, slightly convex above from reflexed margins, with scattered clavate-spathulate cilia up to 3 mm long along margin. Corona ±5-6 mm tall, 7 mm broad, raised only very slightly above base of tube on very short pentagonal stipe; outer lobes 1.5-3.0 mm long, 2 mm broad, ascending-spreading, ± square with notched-truncate apex, upper surface with at least 2 raised radial ridges (area between them usually dark purple-brown, outside them paler brown to cream); inner lobes 3.5-4.0 mm long, adpressed to backs of anthers for half anthers’ length then erect, laterally flattened but becoming broader towards base, linear narrowing to obtuse apex, with spreading terete dorsal horn ±1 mm long near base, fused to outer series near base, dark brown below becoming paler towards apices.
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