Orbea lugardii (N.E.Br.) Bruyns

Small succulent usually consisting of several clumps 60-500 mm diam. connected by ± horizontal rhizomes. Stems 40-150 mm long, 6-12 mm thick (excluding teeth), erect often with subterranean base (to 100 mm long or more and 4-8 mm thick), pale green to silvery grey flecked with purple-brown mainly down grooves between angles; tubercles 3-5 mm long, arranged in and partly joined into 4 obtuse angles along stem with groove between angles, tapering into conical spreading acuminate tooth somewhat flattened above and slightly laterally expanded at the base. Inflorescences 2-6 per stem usually in upper half or near apex, each of 1-3(-7) extremely smelly flowers developing in gradual succession (sometimes all opening simultaneously) from short peduncular swelling; pedicel 3-6 mm long, 1.0-1.5 mm thick, ascending and usually holding flower facing upwards, with few broadly ovate acute bracts 1-2 mm long at base; sepals 3-5 mm long, 1.0-1.5 mm broad at base, lanceolate, acuminate. Corolla 30-45 mm diam., campanulate to rotate, very deeply and narrowly lobed; outside smooth and pale green; inside not rugulose but finely papillate all over and very variably coloured usually with lobes paler than centre (yellow-green, yellow, red, brown with red or brown centre); tube 3-6 mm long, 5-8 mm broad, bowl-shaped, corolla only very slightly thickened towards mouth, containing gynostegium except for tips of inner corona lobes; lobes 18-25 mm long, 3-4 mm broad at base, shortly deltate towards base then slenderly attenuate, acuminate, spreading, with minute rigid cilia along recurved margins. Corona ±6 mm tall, 4.5-6.0 mm broad, raised above base of tube on short stout pentagonal stipe (<0.5 mm long), glabrous; outer lobes 1-2 mm long, ascending, deeply bifid into narrow elongated-deltoid acute diverging lobules, red to purple-brown; inner lobes 4-5 mm long, adpressed to backs of anthers then connivent-erect and sometimes diverging at apices, dorsiventrally flattened, linear from narrowly ovate base, reddish around base to yellow above, with few small ridges on rear above longer square emarginate spreading gibbosity laterally fused to and in series with outer lobes.

It is a subtropical plant.

The leaves are eaten. They have a lettuce flavour.