Shrub or small tree up to 6 m high with a soft, succulent trunk up to 40 cm in diameter at the base, tapering gradually towards the apex or somewhat bottle-shaped; trunk at first simple, later forking with a few ascending main stems, occasionally forking near the base; bark grey to pale brown with darker transverse scars; stems sparingly branched towards the apex; branches glabrous, bark dark grey or reddish brown. Leaves few, near the tips of the young branchlets, sessile, scattered on long shoots or in fascicles (abbreviated axillary shoots), obovate-oblong to oblong-lanceolate, 2-5-8 cm long and 1 • 6-3 • 4 cm broad, shortly tomentose on both surfaces, apex obtuse, apiculate, base cuneate, secondary nerves usually visible in mature leaves; stipules spiny arising from a small cushion with a central depression; spines on long shoots in spreading pairs 1 • 5-3 cm long with often a third intrastipular spine arising proximally, those of the short shoots much shorter. Inflorescence terminal, consisting of several-flowered cymes; bracts small, ovate, fringed with minute hairs, early deciduous; pedicels 2 mm long. Flowers large, showy, white, suffused with purple under the corolla lobes and on the tube. Calyx 4 mm long; sepals ovate-deltoid, fringed with minute hairs. Corolla salver-shaped; tube 3-3-5 cm long, 2-5-3 mm in diameter for 1-1 -2 cm, dilated abruptly to 7-8 mm in diameter at the point of insertion of the stamens and then gradually attenuate to 4 mm at the throat, glabrous without, hairy within; lobes spreading, obliquely obovate-rotund, 2-2 • 4 cm long and 1 • 8-2 cm broad, smooth and slightly convex on one margin, very convex and crisped on the other; apex rounded. Stamens 5; anthers linear-lanceolate, shortly sagittate, 10-11 mm long, united in a cone, subsessile. Disc cupular, deeply 5-lobed. Ovary of 2 free carpels; style filiform; stigma cylindrical with a basal rim. Fruit of two follicular mericarps 7-10 cm long and 1 cm in diameter, attenuate at the apex, glabrous. Seeds numerous, ovoid, 9-10 mm long with an apical coma of whitish hairs 2 cm long; cotyledons flat, rotund, larger than the radicle; endosperm scanty.
