Succulent perennial herb, with a thick fleshy shortly rhizomatous rootstock; stems several, erect to 50 cm, or to 1.5 m when supported by other shrubs, sparsely branched. Branches cylindrical, 1–1.5 cm thick, pale green, longitudinally grooved with 4 grooves emerging from below each of the crowded spirally arranged leaf-scars. Leaves sessile, broadly ovate, to 10 x 8 mm, fleshy, minutely puberulous, quickly deciduous; stipules glandular and scale-like, around the base of the leaf-scar. Cymes arising immediately above the leaf-scars on peduncles to 5 mm long, 1–2-forked, with subsessile cyathia; bract-cup 4 x 7 mm, just exceeding the involucre, shortly notched between obtuse apices and keeled midrib, greenish yellow. Cyathia barrel-shaped, 3 mm in diam., with glandular rim 2 mm high, yellow. Ovary pedicellate; styles 1 mm long, with shortly bifid apices. Capsule exserted on a recurved pedicel 3 mm long, obtusely 3-lobed, 5 x 4 mm, with a pair of narrow fleshy ridges along each angle; perianth 3-lobed below the capsule. Seeds oblong, 4-angled, 3 x 1.5 mm, minutely tuberculate, pale brown, with a cap-like caruncle 1 mm across.