Gibbaeum

Dwarf, succulent perennials forming small, dense clumps or mats, up to 200 mm high; usually with a short woody rootstock, occasionally with fleshy roots. Leaves often very unequal and variable in shape, connate to different degrees, forming +/- spherical bodies or trigonous with an apical chin to digitiform; light to dark green, bluish green, reddish, metallic grey, whitish green or grey-white; epidermis minutely hairy or with long dense hairs, more rarely smooth; stomata, and in most cases, subsidiary cells, sunken. Flowers solitary, terminal, pedicellate, ebracteate, 20 -80 mm in diameter; opening in afternoon and closing in evening. Sepals 6 -9, unequal. Petals 1 -3-seriate, linear, free, white, pink, or different shades of purple. Stamens: staminodes present or 0, often bearded at base. Nectary of 6(?-9) large, separate, crenulate glands. Ovary often somewhat conical; placentas parietal; stigmas 6 -9, usually stout and subulate, plumose. Fruit a 6 -9-locular capsule, of Drosanthemum type; convex or conical with prominent sutures; valves deltoid, spreading, reflexed when expanded; expanding keels parallel or diverging, rarely toothed, terminating in broad wings; covering membranes present; closing bodies 0. Seeds many in each locule, acutely ovoid, smooth. x = 9 ( polyploidy). F lowering from late winter to early summer. D istinguishing characters: Dwarf perennials with subequal to unequal leaves united into bodies with an oblique fissure separating the leaves of a pair, often velvety; flowers purple or white.