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Calyx 5-partite. Corolla rotate-stellate, deeply 5-lobed; disk raised and forming a ring or spurious tube (often more or less distinctly pentagonal) around the staminal-column; lobes more or less folded length-wise and often into narrow vertical plates (replicate), usually horizontally spreading, valvate in bud. Corona double, arising from the top of the staminal-column; outer corona in one piece, disk-like, pentagonal, resting on the rim of the raised disk of the corolla and closing the tube formed by it; inner corona of 5 fleshy ovoid lobes, incumbent on the backs of the anthers, with a short dorsal projection, which is more or less curved upwards. Staminal-column arising from the bottom of the corolla; anthers incumbent on the top of the style. Pollen-masses solitary in each anther-cell, horizontal, attached in pairs by short caudicles to lateral expansions of the pollen-carriers. Style not exceeding the anthers, flat and pentagonal at the apex. Follicles narrowly fusiform, acuminate, smooth. Seeds crowned with a tuft of hairs. Dwarf succulent perennials of tufted habit. Stems thick and fleshy, decumbent or erect, 4–6-angled; angles toothed; teeth terminating in small acute or subulate leaf-rudiments, which are deciduous or persist and wither, and usually have a minute tooth (rudimentary stipule) on each side at their base. Flowers of moderate size, in sessile or subsessile cymes at the middle or base of the young shoots.