plant 6–8 in. high, branching at the base; stems cylindric or slightly clavate-cylindric, 1 1/2–2 in. thick, with about 25 vertical series of crowded tubercles, each ending in a stiff brown bristle 2–3 lin. long, dull-dark-green, somewhat glaucous; flowers 1–3 together in the grooves between the tubercles; pedicels about 3/4 lin. long, glabrous; sepals 1–1 1/2 lin. long, subulate-acuminate from an ovate base, glabrous; corolla in bud somewhat flattened at the top and very abruptly cuspidate, when expanded 1/2– 2/3 in. in diam., glabrous and smooth on the back, densely papillate-tuberculate all over the limb and lobes on the inner face, not ciliate, dark purple-brown; tube about 1 lin. long, cup-like, circular or subpentagonal at the mouth; limb spreading, lobed to 3/4 of the way down, slightly raised around the mouth of the tube; lobes 2–3 lin. long and as much in breadth, broadly deltoid-ovate, cuspidate-acuminate into a short subulate point; outer corona apparently consisting of 5 spreading deeply bifid (rarely entire) oblong, ovate or deltoid-ovate acute lobes about 2/3 lin. long, opposite the anthers, really formed by the widely diverging adjacent segments of 2 lobes being connate behind the inner corona-lobes for nearly half their length at the base or rarely up to the apex, glabrous, dark purple-brown; inner corona-lobes 1/4 lin. long, linear, obtuse, closely incumbent on the backs of the anthers and shorter than them, dorsally connected at the base to the outer corona, dark purple-brown. null
