Dwarf slightly rhizomatous succulent forming clump to 150 mm diam. Stems 20-70(-200) mm long, 6-20 mm thick, decumbent with horizontal (and often quite slender) portion sometimes spreading up to 60(-100) mm underground, silvery green to green with dark green to purplish mottling, minutely papillate (glabrous to naked eye); tubercles 1-3 mm long, broadly deltoid, laterally flattened and joined near base into 4 narrowly obtuse angles along stem, tapering abruptly to minute conical tooth. Inflorescence glabrous, usually developing at level of surface of soil or beneath it, with several lanceolate bracts up to 1 mm long on short broad peduncle (occasionally up to 30 mm long); pedicel 5-8 mm long, 1 mm thick, spreading then erect holding flower facing upwards; sepals 2.0-2.5 mm long, 1 mm broad at base, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate. Corolla 9-18 mm long, 5-11 mm diam., ovoid with somewhat flattened base; outside glabrous, smooth, shiny purple-red; inside paler velvety (matt) purple-red, densely covered with conical obtuse papillae on inside of tube only, longest (up to 0.5 mm) towards mouth and shortest towards base, each with an apical bristle (very short in upper half of tube, up to 2 mm long in lower half); tube 6-16 mm long, 8-10 mm broad near base narrowing to 2.0-2.5 mm inside slightly thickened mouth, ovoid; lobes 2.0-3.5 mm long, 2.0-2.5 mm broad at base, erect to spreading, deltate, acute. Corona ±3 mm tall, 4.0-4.5 mm broad, raised on circular stipe ±1.5 mm long and 5-6 mm thick narrowing above into gynostegium, purplish red becoming yellowish at base of inner lobes, glabrous; outer lobes 1.0-1.5 mm tall, fused laterally with sides of inner lobes into cylindrical to bowl-shaped tube 3 mm broad at base and 3.0-4.5 mm broad around mouth, with pairs of nearly erect to spreading deltate lobules 0.5-0.7 mm long at mouth of tube alternating with inner lobes; inner lobes 2.0-2.3 mm long, erect then connivent at broadly obtuse apices, laterally flattened, slightly broadened in lower half but otherwise without dorsal appendage.
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Like S. neronis but up to 70 x 150 mm, stems up to 20 mm thick, often rhizomatous, corolla ovoid, with flattened base, 9-18 x 5-11 mm, glabrous and shiny outside, inside purple-red, outer corona basally tubular, bifid above, ± 1.5 mm tall, much exceeded by broader inner lobes.
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