a succulent leafless spiny tree, 10–15 ft. high; trunk becoming naked and cylindric below, 6–8 in. thick; branches ascending, curved at their basal part, 5–6-angled, deeply constricted into conic-ovate or somewhat heart-shaped segments 2–6 in. long, and 1 1/2–3 in. in diam., with the small central solid part not more than 3/4–1 in. thick in the younger branches, glabrous; angles wing-like, with triangular channels 3/4–1 1/2 in. deep between them, their margins with a continuous horny nearly even grey border; leaves rudimentary, scale-like, about 1/2 lin. long and 1 lin. broad, transverse, apiculate; spines 1 1/2–4 lin. long, in pairs 1/4– 3/4 in. apart, widely diverging, grey, with blackish tips; flowering-eyes 1 1/2–4 lin. above the spine-pairs; cymes 1–3 from the same eye, sessile, each with 3 involucres, glabrous; bracts about 1 1/2 lin. long and 2 lin. broad, rounded, concave, usually minutely denticulate; involucres all sessile and the middle one male, lateral fertile, 2 1/2–3 lin. in diam., cup-shaped, glabrous, with 5 glands and 5 erect short transversely rectangular fringed lobes; glands contiguous, 1 1/3–1 3/4 lin. in their greater diam., narrowly transverse oblong, very minutely rugulose on the upper surface; capsule about 1/4 in. long and 4 1/2–6 lin. in diam., exserted on a stout pedicel, curved to one side, deeply 3-lobed seen from above, with laterally compressed lobes, glabrous, dark purple on the apex and along the angles, having a somewhat fleshy calyx at its base, with 3 deltoid-ovate acute lobes about 1 lin. long; cell-walls about 1/4 lin. thick, woody; styles 1 lin. long, united for two-thirds of their length, with spreading arms, bifid at the apex; seeds 1 1/2 lin. in diam., globose, with a raised line in a very slight furrow on one side, and a small pit at one end, light grey. null
