plant forming a cushion-like mass 2–3 in. high and 4–12 in. in diam. of densely crowded branches, succulent, spineless, leafless; rootstock or main stem thick and fleshy, obconic, buried in the ground and covered to the centre of its flattened top with crowded branches, which are also partly or wholly buried in the ground, as with age (after attaining a length of 1–2 in.) they branch at the tips and the branchlets again divide in a similar manner, becoming in turn buried with the development of the plant; younger branchlets 1/3– 2/3 in. thick, at first subglobose, becoming cylindric or clavate and finally greatly thickened, very obtusely rounded at the apex, tessellately tuberculate, dull green or purplish-tinted; tubercles 1 1/2–2 lin. in diam., about 1/2 lin. prominent, rhomboid or hexagonal, very obtusely and broadly rounded-conical, with a whitish and not at all impressed leaf-scar at their apex; leaves rudimentary, soon deciduous, fleshy, 1/2–1 lin. long, 1/3– 1/2 lin. broad, sessile, ovate or lanceolate, subacute, channelled down the face, glabrous; involucres sessile at the tips of the branches, surrounded by 3–5 suborbicular or broadly obovate ciliate thin scale-like bracts, male and bisexual occurring on the same plant, cup-shaped, 2 1/2–3 lin. in diam. and about 1 lin. deep, glabrous, with 5 glands and 5 subquadrate or transversely rectangular ciliate lobes; glands distant, greenish-yellow (Galpin), 1/2–1 lin. in their greater diam., transversely oblong, subentire or minutely toothed or with subulate processes up to 1/4 lin. long, on their outer margin; capsule sessile, about 1/3 in. in diam., slightly and very obtusely 3-lobed or trigonous, glabrous; styles free nearly to the base, radiating, 1/2 lin. long, very stout, broadly wedge-shaped or with suborbicular stigmas, channelled down the face; seeds 1 3/4 lin. in diam., globose-ovoid, abruptly acute, truncate at the base, minutely tuberculate on the dorsal side and with a broad smooth stripe on the ventral side, glabrous, dark-brown. null
