Quaqua pruinosa (Masson) Bruyns

Diffuse succulent shrublet branching well above ground level from a single centrally rooted stem. Stems 100-500 mm long, 10-15(-20) mm thick, erect then spreading horizontally and somewhat tapering towards apex, greyish green to dark purple-grey or almost black especially on young growth; tubercles <2 mm long, obtuse and very obscure, joined into 4(rarely 5) obtuse and obscure angles along stem, each bearing a minute hard-tipped tooth in the middle. Inflorescences of 1-3 usually successively opening flowers towards tips of stems; pedicel 2-8 mm long, 0.5-1.0 mm thick, spreading and holding flower facing horizontally; sepals 1-2 mm long, ovate-acute. Corolla 7-13 mm diam., rotate; outside grey-green to mottled or suffused with purple-brown; inside somewhat rugulose, dark maroon (almost black) sometimes with white ring around corona, covered with fine crinkled white hairs up to 1 mm long; tube ±0.5 mm long, containing less than half of column, very broadly conical to ± absent, with corolla thickened around mouth; lobes (2-)3-5 mm long, 2.5-3.0 mm broad at base, deltate to deltate-lanceolate or ovate, acute, spreading. Corona 2 mm tall, 2.2-2.5 mm broad (usually nearly as tall as broad), black becoming reddish towards base, narrowing gradually towards base without obvious stipe; outer lobes with free part <0.5 mm long, erect, shallowly bifid into small erect deltoid teeth, laterally fused for most of length with lower outer sides of inner lobes to form pouches enclosing guide-rails; inner lobes <1 mm long, adpressed to backs of anthers and exceeding them, linear to deltoid with notched to obtuse apex, dorsiventrally flattened, with short ridge-like often spreading dorsal projection near base a little above outer lobes.