When one sees a great many of these plants together, this usually means that the local vegetation has been heavily disturbed (the plants are rarely eaten by stock or game because the juice in the leaves is very salty). They can absorb a great amount of water after rain, not only in the leaves but also in the roots.
The plants usually live for only a few years or, in more official terms, they are annuals or short-lived perennials, up to 50 cm tall with leaves 3-4 cm long and about 1 cm thick.
The flowers appear in spring (August-October) and produce large fruits with woolly seeds.
This species (the only one in the genus) is widespread on dry sandy or loamy flats from southern Namibia and Bushmanland to the Little Karoo.
