Perennial with thick fleshy roots.Stems succulent, glabrous, sparingly branched, erect to c. 45 cm high or decumbent to 80 cm long and rooting, up to 3 cm in diameter, cylindrical, covered with tubercles in a diamond-shaped pattern (tessellations); tubercles c. 10 × 8 mm and up c. 5 mm high, crowned with circular leaf scars 3 mm in diameter.Leaves subsessile, crowded towards the stem apex, up to 10 × 4.5 cm, obovate, tapering to a narrow base, fleshy, minutely puberulous, margins crisped, midrib prominent beneath; stipules modified into a cluster of 5–6 firm prickles, 1–3 mm long, arranged around the base of the leaf scars.Cymes axillary, simple or occasionally 2-forked; peduncles to 8 mm long; cyme branches c. 3 mm long; bracts joined in a bract-cup c. 6 × 9 mm, shortly notched between rounded lobes, sometimes minutely puberulous, yellowish-green.Cyathia c. 6 × 5 mm, with cup-shaped involucres; glandular rim c. 2.5 mm high, minutely crenulate, cream with yellow; lobes 1.25 × 2 mm, rounded, denticulate.Male flowers: bracteoles 2 mm long, filamentous; stamens 4 mm long.Female flower: perianth 3-lobed, 3.5 mm in diameter; styles 2 mm long, joined at the base, deeply bifid at the apex.Capsule c. 8 × 8 mm, obtusely lobed, with a pair of fleshy crested ridges 0.5 mm wide along the sutures, exserted on a reflexed pedicel to 8 mm long.Seeds c. 4 × 1.8 mm, oblong, 4-angled, minutely and shallowly verrucose, pale brownish-grey; caruncle cap-shaped, 1 mm in diameter, shortly stipitate.