Stapelia paniculata Willd.

Dwarf succulent forming neat compact clump 60-150 mm diam. Stems 20-150 mm long, 3-12 mm thick, erect, shortly pubescent, green often mottled with purple; tubercles 2-4 mm long, low conical, joined into 4 obtuse angles along stem between which stem slightly grooved; leaf-rudiments 1.0-1.5 mm long. Inflorescences finely pubescent, 1-5 per stem from base to apex, each with 1-10 flowers developing in close succession on short peduncle up to 5 mm long with several deltoid bracts 1.0-1.5 mm long; pedicel 9-22 mm long, 1.5 mm thick, spreading with ascending tip to ascending, usually holding flower facing at least somewhat upwards; sepals 3-4 mm long, 1.5 mm broad at base, lanceolate, acute, green to reddish. Corolla 15-25 mm diam., rotate; outside reddish green with 1-5 darker veins on each lobe; inside usually obscurely transversely rugulose at least from middle of lobes downwards to base of tube (sometimes all over), red-purple to dark maroon sometimes transversely lined with yellow around and below bases of lobes, covered with sharp-tipped spreading to adpressed purple to white hairs over most of surface (often disappearing towards tips of lobes, sometimes very short all over) longest towards margins of lobes and often translucent-white there; tube ±1 mm deep, very short and broadly bowl-shaped, pentagonal, with corolla somewhat thickened around mouth; lobes 5-9 mm long, 4-5 mm broad at base, spreading to reflexed, ovate-acuminate. Corona 2.5-5.0 mm tall, 4.5-7.0 mm broad, raised on obtusely pentagonal reddish stipe ±1 mm long, glabrous; outer lobes 1.0-1.5 mm long and slightly narrower, ascending-spreading, ± rectangular with 1-3 obtuse teeth at apex, dark maroon; inner lobes 1.0-2.6 mm long, dark maroon, adpressed to backs of anthers then erect to recurved beyond them, dorsiventrally flattened below becoming terete above, narrowly acuminate, usually with ± deltoid obtuse laterally flattened and ascending dorsal wing.