Perennial, spiny, tuberous herb or undershrub; rootstock stout, creeping; stems and branches erect, straggling, terete, grooved or angled, armed; leaves minute, scaly, often spinescent with a tuft of cladoded in axils, which are needle like, linear-lanceolate or falcate, flattened, fascicled, 2-6 nate in an artistic manner; flowers small, numerous in fascicles or paniculate racemes, white; perianth lobes-6, greenish white, distinct, spreading, lanceolate or elliptic-obovate; stamens 6, filaments slender, short, orange, oblong anthers; ovary 3-celled, globose, glabrous, ovules many in each locule, style short, stigma globose; berries globose or obovoid, smooth, deep red.