Stout succulent shrub to 3 m high, glabrous, sparingly branched; branches to 5 cm in diameter, tuberculate; tubercles tightly spiralled in 5–8 or more series, rhomboid to about 15 × 15 mm, very prominent, bearing the leaves at their apices.Leaves subsessile; lamina to 12 × 4 cm, obovate-lanceolate, acute and apiculate at the apex, tapering to the base, entire.Cymes in axillary and terminal 1–5-branched umbels produced on slender leafy branches to 10 cm long, arising from the tubercle axils, with primary rays to 7 cm long, each forking many times and the dry remains persisting towards the apex of the main branches.Bracts sessile, c. 3.5 × 4 cm, deltoid, apex acuminate, base subcordate, the bracts below the umbel larger and more leaf-like.Cyathia on peduncles c. 2 mm long, 7 × 15 mm with cup-shaped involucres; glands 4(5), c. 2 × 3.5 mm, transversely elliptic, outer margin with 2–7 finger-like processes 2–4 mm long with swollen, sometimes scarcely bifid tips, green; lobes 3 × 3 mm, subquadrate, margin very deeply toothed, puberulous.Male flowers: bracteoles fan-shaped, laciniate, feathery; stamens 8 mm long.Female flower: ovary pedicellate; styles c. 4 mm long, joined to halfway, with spreading slightly thickened apices.Fruit exserted on a curved pedicel c. 1 cm long; capsule to 10 × 13 mm, subglobose, 3-lobed.Seeds 4 × 3.5 mm, ovoid, apex very obtuse, surface very obscurely wrinkled, brown.
