Quaqua

Succulent, sometimes spiky subshrubs or shrubs, branching at or above base to form clumps. Stems 4(5 or 6)-angled, not stoloniferous, glabrous, leafless, grey to purplish, with angles rounded, bearing stout, convex tubercles each armed with a hardened, conical, horizontal to decurved, yellow-brown tooth, each tooth sometimes flanked by two denticles, tubercles from adjacent angles meeting in middle of stem with well-defined groove. Inflorescences 1-20 per stem, glabrous, mainly in upper part of stem. Flowers solitary or produced in fascicles arising from peduncular patches in groove in middle of stem formed by tubercles. Corolla variously expanding, depending on number of flowers in fascicle, frequently papillate and spiculate, rarely hairy within, 7-25 mm diam., mostly much smaller than diameter of stems; tube rarely absent, bowl-shaped to conical, up to 5 mm deep; lobes ovate-lanceolate to linear-acute, margins sometimes ciliate, sometimes conspicuously folded back, 3-15 mm long. Corona: outer lobes deeply bifid, to shallowly bifid or entire and entirely enclosing space between inner lobes to form cup around column, arising near base of inner lobes; inner lobes adpressed to backs of anthers for most of length of anthers, occasionally initially incumbent and then rising up in centre in a small column, mostly dorsally flattened. Anthers 2-locular, horizontal on top of style head, rectangular. Pollinia ellipsoidal, with pellucid margin along outer edge. Follicles terete-fusiform, erect, diverging at up to 90deg. Seeds flattened, brown, finely papillate on surface, with tuft of hairs. x = 11.