Stapeliopsis breviloba (R.A.Dyer) Bruyns

Dwarf rhizomatous succulent forming clump 30-80(-150) mm diam. Stems 10-60 mm long, 4-7(-9) mm thick, decumbent with horizontal portion sometimes spreading up to 150 mm or more underground, above-ground portions erect, glabrous, grey-brown, smooth; tubercles 1-2 mm long, conical, joined near base into 4 obtuse angles along stem, tapering to fine acute spreading tooth. Inflorescence glabrous, usually developing near base of stem at level of soil or below from small often subterranean peduncle; pedicel 3-7 mm long, <1 mm thick, spreading with ascending apex holding flower facing upwards; sepals ±2.5 mm long, lanceolate, acute. Corolla 10-13 mm long, 5.0-6.5 mm diam., ellipsoidal (broadest near middle); outside glabrous, smooth, somewhat shiny pinkish brown to reddish towards base; inside pale flesh-coloured around mouth of tube and lobes, below this merging into deep maroon-black, velvety-smooth, with bristles up to 1 mm long in lower half of tube, some arising from low rounded papillae; tube 8-10 mm long, narrowing towards mouth; lobes 2-3 mm long, 2.0-2.5 mm broad at base, inflexed over mouth of tube, ascending towards and fused at tips, narrowly deltate, acute. Corona ±3 mm tall, 2.5 mm broad, raised on white obtusely pentagonal stipe 0.5-1.0 mm long, deep maroon; outer lobes ±0.5 mm long, ascending, truncate to finely denticulate, entire to emarginate, forming shallow pouch between bases of inner lobes and fused laterally to them for entire length; inner lobes 2.0-2.4 mm long, erect then connivent at apices, laterally flattened becoming dorsiventrally flattened near obtuse slightly swollen tips, with obtuse and obscure spreading hump-like dorsal wing near middle.