Quaqua incarnata (L.F.) Bruyns

Small to robust succulent forming clump 60-300 mm diam. Stems 50-300 mm long, 12-32 mm thick, decumbent, greyish green to purplish green; tubercles 3-6 mm long, conical spreading, joined near bases into 4-5 often somewhat disorganised angles along stem, tipped by sharp yellow tooth, often with 2 stipular denticles on either side near base. Inflorescences of 3-10 ± simultaneously opening flowers towards apex of stem; pedicel 1-3 mm long, 0.5-1.0 mm thick, holding flower facing ± horizontally; sepals 1.5-2.0 mm long, ovate-lanceolate, acute. Corolla 7-25 mm diam., campanulate to rotate; outside usually pale pink especially towards tips of lobes and becoming whitish towards base of flower (occasionally yellowish); inside white or cream to pale yellow (to faintly brownish) becoming whitish in tube (whole corolla often turning pale pink before closing), with stiff ascending cylindrical white to pale maroon bristles in mouth of tube and around bases of lobes, otherwise smooth and glabrous; tube 1.0-2.5 mm deep, deeply cupular to shallowly bowl-shaped, containing whole column, slightly thickened around mouth; lobes (2-)3-10 mm long, 2.0-2.5 mm broad at base, ascending to spreading, narrowly deltate to lanceolate usually with broader base, folded longitudinally down middle for at least half of length. Corona 1.0-1.6 mm tall, 2.0-2.3 mm broad, yellow, sometimes raised on short obtusely pentagonal stipe; outer lobes ±0.5 mm long, ascending to erect, shallowly to deeply bifid into erect deltoid to narrowly deltoid teeth joined laterally to bases of inner lobes and so forming pouch enclosing guide-rails; inner lobes <0.5 mm long, adpressed to backs of anthers and shorter than to slightly exceeding them, ± deltoid to rectangular, obtuse to acute, dorsiventrally flattened, dorsally swollen near base but otherwise without dorsal projection.

It is a subtropical plant.

The edges and prickles are peeled off then the plant is eaten. The stem is eaten as a vegetable and in salads.