Sprawling, glaucous, leafless shrub, up to 0.6 m tall, with stout, rigid, outspread, spine-tipped branches. Flowers in short, compact, dense racemes, tepals fringed with a few, long papillae, whitish.
Robust, thorny, nearly leafless shrub to 1.5 m, with grooved stems. Leaves obsolete. Flowers in rounded, head-like clusters on short peduncles, whitish.