plant 1–3 ft. high, succulent, leafless, more or less spiny, erect, branching in a clustered or more or less whorled manner, diœcious; branches ascending or erect, but sometimes decumbent and rooting at the base, 7/8–1 1/3 in. thick, 7–12-angled, glabrous, green, becoming light brown with age; angles not spirally arranged, 1–1 1/2 lin. prominent, tessellately divided by impressed lines into 6-angled transversely oblong tubercles 1 1/2–2 lin. long, 2 3/4–4 lin. broad, very broadly and obtusely subconical, with a central whitish leaf-scar and a slight but distinct transverse raised line across their middle; leaves rudimentary, soon deciduous, 1–1 1/4 lin. long, 1/3– 3/4 lin. broad, ovate or elliptic-lanceolate, acute; spines (modified peduncles) solitary in the axils of the tubercles, 3–8 lin. long, horizontally spreading, more or less clustered in whorl-like groups at irregular distances along the stems and branches, green when young, changing to red and finally grey, bearing about 4 minute deciduous bracts; flowers clustered at the apex of the branches, solitary in the axils of the tubercles; peduncles in the male plant 1–1 1/2 lin. long, bearing 1 involucre and 3–4 oblong obtuse entire bracts 3/4–1 lin. long; in the female plant 0 and the involucre sessile, surrounded by the bracts; involucre of the male plant 2 1/2–3 lin. in diam., of the female 1 1/4–1 1/2 lin. in diam., cup-shaped, glabrous, green, with 5 glands and 5 transversely rectangular denticulate lobes; glands 3/4–1 1/4 lin. in their greater diam. in the male and about 1/2– 3/4 lin. in the female plant, transversely oblong or with their inner margin nearly straight and the outer forming a semicircle, entire or minutely crenulate, rugose, green; ovary sessile, subglobose, scarcely angular, without a calyx at its base, glabrous; styles 1 lin. long, united for half their length into a stout column, with stout spreading deeply bifid tips, green; fruit not seen. null
