Plants of this species are always covered with spines, which makes them easy to recognise. Another helpful characteristic (when you have a living plant in front of you!) is that the plants will smell of fish when damaged.
Mature plants develop into erect shrubs to 25 cm tall, with dark brown to grey internodes and trigonous , 1-1.5 cm long leaves.
Each inflorescence has up to 18 brittle spines on the outside and in July-August may contain1-7 flowers 1-2.2 cm in diameter.
The species is locally common in open Karoo vegetation on stony shale soil from the Cederberg Mountains to Worcester, Matjiesfontein and Montagu.
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