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Leaves 25–78 x 10–25 mm., thin-textured, drying blackish, often ephemeral; petiole 0–3 mm.; lamina narrowly obovate with apex obtuse and mucronate or cuspidate-acute, base tapering; upper surface glabrous, midrib ± level, lateral veins obscure; margin usually tuberculate-hispid; lower surface completely glabrous or with hispid midrib, the latter raised, other nerves usually obscure; leaf sometimes strongly undulate so that it cannot be pressed flat without folding.
Succulent shrub, up to 1.5 m high. Leaves obovate-elliptic, ± twice as long as broad, wider than 10 mm, sparingly pubescent on midrib below and margin fimbriate, otherwise glabrous. Corolla salver-shaped; tube subcylindrical, dilated at insertion of stamens. Flowers white suffused with reddish purple under corolla lobes and on tube.
Leaves spirally arranged, each lamina subtended by a pair of spines, these 10–40 mm. long, stout, glabrous, straight, angled slightly upwards, with confluent swollen bases; a third, much smaller, spine also usually present proximal to the petiole.
Corolla tube 30–42 mm. long, narrow in the lowest third then widening abruptly and gradually narrowing towards the apex, externally glabrous, internally pilose with long weak hairs above and below the stamens.
Anthers sessile, inserted at base of swollen part of corolla tube, 9·5–11 mm. long, each comprising a sterile sagittate structure bearing two thecae 6–6·5 mm. long on its ventral surface and a retinacle.
Style 1, slender, glabrous, attached to the two carpels at their apices; clavuncle annular, joined to the anther retinacles by a rubbery latex; style 2-lobed.
Corolla lobes 1/2-2/3 as long as tube, asymmetrical, ± triangular with one straight and one strongly rounded, crisped edge; both surfaces glabrous.
Inflorescences terminal, many-flowered, very condensed; axes glabrous; flowers pink to purple on outside of corolla, white above, greenish within.
Ovary of 2 completely free, compressed-ovoid, glabrous carpels, each unilocular with ventral placenta bearing ¥ (c. 200) ovules.
Five partially united oppositipetalous glabrous scales c. 1 mm. long borne on receptacle internal to the corolla.
Short shoots, with crowded slender spines up to 1 cm. long, present in axils of main stem leaves.
Low succulent shrub 0·5–2 m. high with swollen, little-branched stems arising from a large tuber.
Seeds c. 7 mm. long, compressed-ovoid, with apical coma of pale golden hairs up to 5 cm. long.
Stems glabrous, bark smooth, pale grey, deeply longitudinally wrinkled on drying.
Fruit of 2 horn-like follicles up to 15 cm. long containing ¥ seeds.
Calyx c. 4 mm. long, glabrous, segments imbricate, triangular.
