A succulent bush up to 6 ft. high, leafless except on the very young branches, spineless, glabrous. Branchlets alternate, more or less clustered, subparallel or very little divergent, 2 1/2–12 in. long, 1 1/2–3 lin. thick, terete, with prominent leaf-scars. Leaves not seen, soon deciduous. Umbels terminal, of 3–7 simple rays, 1/5– 1/2 in. long, each bearing 1 involucre, glabrous; when young with a whorl of thin green oblong acute bracts at the base of the umbel about as long as the peduncle-like rays and a pair under each involucre about 2 lin. long and 1 1/2–2 lin. broad, orbicular-obovate, obtuse, apiculate, all soon deciduous. Involucre 1/4 in. in diam., broadly and shallowly cup-shaped, glabrous, with 4 glands and 5 transverse scarcely toothed or ciliate but sometimes 2-lobed lobes; glands 1–1 1/2 lin. in their greater diam., transversely elliptic or suborbicular. Capsule about 1/4 in. in diam., obtusely 3-angled, far exserted on a pedicel ultimately 1/4 in. or more long, glabrous; styles 1 lin. long, shortly united at the base, then spreading, bifid at the apex with the lobes widely diverging. Seeds about 1 3/4 lin. long, ellipsoid, with a small caruncle; faintly tuberculate-rugulose, whitish.
