Perennial to 30 cm high. Branches woolly. Leaves narrowly ovate to elliptic, acute, c. 5 mm long, 1.5 mm wide, thick, somewhat boat-shaped, silky-pubescent, crowded towards branch apices. Flowers solitary, tomentose. Stamens 5. Fruiting perianth hard, woolly, persistent; attachment basal, circular, concave; base slightly gibbous, tube oblong, c. 3 mm long, dorsiventrally flattened, somewhat recurved; limb erect, c. 1 mm long; spines 4–5, flattened and fused together in 2 pairs as short oblong plates on abaxial and adaxial surfaces of perianth, a lateral spine sometimes also present or this fused to the abaxial pair, the plates either very short or up to 1 mm long and recurved, bearing at their apex short tubercles or slender spines to 1 mm long. Seed erect; radicle vertical.
Home