Roots: Superficial.
Stem: Stemless or shortly caulescent.
Rosette: Stemless, dense, 20–25 leafed, 3-10 cm in diameter.
Leaves: Succulent, soft, very juicy, obovate, boat-shaped, acute, 2-4(-5) cm long, up to 2 cm broad, 4-5 mm thick, upper surface slightly concave or sometime slightly convex, rounded on the back, prominently keeled upwards, not distinctly aristate (terminal bristle 1-5 mm long) , margin and keel smooth, sometime slightly serrated near the tips, green, bluish-green to greenish-grey, yellowish-green, turning yellow or orange red in full sun, marked especially in the upper half with indistinct anastomosing vertical achlorophyllous lines forming a translucent surface with ample irregular areas free of pigmentation known as windows (Some other genus such as Fenestraria also have transparent leaf tips). In the wild, the sun is very bright, and the plant grows mostly buried by sand with only these transparent tips above the ground. The greater part of the leaf, the cone mantle, is not exposed directly to the sun since the leaf is embedded into the soil, but receive the light incident on the windows transmitted trough the colourless water storage tissue to the assimilatory tissue located in the underground base of the leaf.
Flowers: Relatively inconspicuous whitish/greenish with a light pinkish-brown keel, peduncle simple, 15 cm long; raceme lax, 15 long; lower pedicels 4-6 mm long; bracts small, ovate; perianth 2 cm long; segments nearly as long as the tube.
Blooming season: Spring to summer.
Chromosome number: n = 7.
