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A shrub, 10–15 ft. high, full of a watery, resinous and viscid juice, covered with pairs of rigid spines. Trunk succulent, 2–3 ft. in circumference near the base, grey, sparingly branched from the middle; young branchlets and spines purplish. Leaves in spirals, few, usually only near the tips of the young branchlets, oblong-lanceolate, scarcely 1 lin. long, membranous, with a strong midrib terminating in a subulate acumen, soon deciduous; stipules spiny, 1–1 1/2 in. long. Cymes many-flowered, glabrous, up to 6–7 in. in diam.; peduncle stout, of variable length; pedicels stout, 1 1/2–4 lin. long; bracts scale-like, triangular, acute, soon deciduous Calyx glabrous 1 1/2–2 lin. long; sepals ovate, acuminate. Corolla sweet-scented; tube purple, cylindric, widened at the middle, 1 1/2–1 3/4 in. long, hairy within below the stamens; limb 2 1/2–3 in. in diam., white inside, pink on the back; lobes broad, obliquely ovate, the inner margin crisp. Anthers 4 1/2–5 lin. long. Disc cupular, slightly 5-lobed. Follicles spreading at a right angle when mature, spindle-shaped, compressed, 3–5 in. long, glabrous. Seeds obovoid, compressed, 3 1/2 lin. long, coma 2–3 times as long.