Information

Succulent suberect or scrambling shrub 0.6–3 m high, usually leafless, sometimes forming ragged thickets; stems often much branched, succulent, to 1 cm in diameter, cylindrical or ribbed, green with white or darker stripes. Leaves towards the tips of young shoots, quickly deciduous, succulent, lanceolate, becoming less fleshy when mature and up to 4.5 cm long and 1 cm wide, glabrous. Capitula discoid in terminal few-headed umbelliform cymes; involucre cylindrical, 10–15 mm long, 2.5–4 mm in diameter; bracts of calyculus 1–4, inconspicuous, up to 1 mm long; phyllaries 5, pale green, sometimes tipped with brown, 10–15 mm long. Ray florets absent; disc florets white, sometimes pale yellow or greenish-yellow, corolla 12–20 mm long, tube glabrous, expanded in upper part, lobes 1.3–2 mm long. Achenes ± 6.3 mm long, hairy; pappus 17–20 mm long in flower, 26–29 mm long in fruit. Fig. 139 (page 686).