Succulent shrublet with a large, half-to almost fully-submerged tuberous stem up to 18 cm in diameter bearing several to numerous slender branches. Branches erect or spreading, simple or sparingly branched, 12-45 cm high and 5-10 mm in diameter; young stems pubescent, soon becoming glabrous; bark wrinkled. Leaves sessile, scattered on long shoots and in sessile fascicles (short shoots), the latter from the axils of the former, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 2-4 cm long and 2-7 mm broad, asperulous to glabrous above, hispidulous to hirsute below, especially along the midrib; margin recurved; stipules spiny, forming a cushion around the base of the leaf with a depression in the centre after the leaf has shed; spines on long shoots in pairs, 1-2 cm long with often a third short intrastipular spine placed pro x imally, those of the short shoots clustered and much shorter; spine cushions puberulous, soon becoming glabrous. Inflorescence terminal on the long and short shoots and hence often apparently axillary, cymose, few to 1-flowered, sessile; bracts small, lanceolate, deciduous; pedicels 2-3.5 mm long, glabrous. Flowers purple to pink, the lobes usually paler, rarely white. Calyx 3-4 mm long, glabrous or scantily puberulous; sepals ovate, acute. Corolla subcampanulate to funnel-shaped; tube 1.4-2 cm long, narrowly cylindrical for 4-6 mm then widening abruptly to 7-8 mm in diameter and usually increasing slightly towards the throat, glabrous without, hairy below the stamens within; limb slightly oblique, scarcely spreading; lobes broadly obovate to rotund 5-7 mm long, apex rounded. Stamens 5; anthers lanceolate, sagittate, 5 mm long, united in a cone, subsessile, inserted at the apex of the narrow part of the tube. Disc cupular, deeply 5-lobed, almost obscuring the ovary. Ovary of 2 free carpels; style filiform; stigma subcylindrical with a basal rim. Fruit of 2 follicular mericarps 4-6.5 cm long, tapering at each end, grey pubescent. Seeds numerous, ovoid, compressed, 4-5 mm long with an apical coma of whitish hairs 2 cm long; cotyledons flat, rotund, shorter than the radicle; endosperm 0.
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Perennial, dwarf, succulent shrub, 0.1-0.4 m high; stem tuber sometimes partly exposed above ground. Leaves lanceolate to narrow-lanceolate, 20-40 x 2-7 mm; lower surface hirsute; stipules spiny, solitary or more commonly paired, 10-20 mm long, spine cushion glabrous when mature. Inflorescences solitary or few-flowered. Flowers ± campanulate, purple or pink. Corolla: tube 14-20 mm long, widening above insertion of stamens; lobes broadly ovate to rotund, 5-7 mm long. Gynoecium apocarpous and bicarpellate. Circumgynoecial glandular disc cupular and sinuate, almost hiding ovary. Style head subcylindrical. Flowering time Apr.-June. Follicles 40-65 mm long.
Spiny, succulent shrublet with swollen underground stem to 50 cm; sap clear. Leaves lanceolate, glabrescent above, hairy beneath. Flowers 1-few, pink to purple, sometimes white, with broadly funnel-shaped tube 7-8 mm diam., lobes 5-7 mm long.
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