Quaqua pillansii (N.E.Br.) Bruyns

Robust succulent shrub up to 0.5 m tall and 0.6 m broad, rooting from a single central stem only. Stems 150-400 mm long, 20-40 mm thick, erect, grey-green mottled with purple-brown; tubercles 8-15 mm long, deltoid, laterally flattened, spreading, joined in lower half into 4 thick obtuse angles along stem, each tipped with a blunt to sharp hardened yellow to brown tooth. Inflorescences of 4-20 ± simultaneously opening flowers usually in dense fascicles mostly in upper half of stem; pedicels 1-2 mm long, 2 mm thick, often thickening towards calyx, spreading and holding flower facing horizontally; sepals 2-3 mm long, ovate-acute, speckled with purple. Corolla 12-18 mm long, 8-17 mm diam., campanulate; outside somewhat shiny, dark purple-brown to pale red lightening to cream speckled with purple-red towards base; inside spotted and transversely mottled with dark to pale purple-brown or maroon on cream, covered, except in base of tube around corona with low obtuse papillae each tipped with an ascending purplish bristle up to 1 mm long (longest in mouth of tube); tube 4.5-6.0 mm long, 3-4 mm broad at mouth, ± elliptical, with corolla much thickened around mouth; lobes 7-11 mm long, 4-6 mm broad, erect to spreading, oblong-ovate, very shortly acute, lightly folded back longitudinally so that ventral surface convex. Corona 2.0-2.5 mm tall, 2-3 mm broad, raised on short stipe; outer lobes 0.8-1.2 mm long, ascending-erect, ± truncate-emarginate, laterally fused for whole length with bases of inner lobes to form deep pouch, dark purple-brown; inner lobes ±1 mm long, usually sloping upwards at about 45° to horizontal, adpressed to backs of anthers in lower half and exceeding them to touch in centre, rectangular to broadly deltoid, broadly obtuse and sometimes emarginate, dorsiventrally flattened, with broadly swollen obtuse to truncate-emarginate dorsal projection in series with outer lobes, margins and dorsal projection purple-brown, otherwise yellow suffused with red to dark purple.