Grows as a compact, low-profile rosette. For many years, it maintains a strictly distichous (two-ranked) fan shape, with leaves growing exactly opposite each other.
Incredibly thick, rigid, and recurved, looking almost like heavy, stylized leather or dark stoneware. The tips are abruptly blunt or rounded.
The dark green sections of the epidermis are famously scabrid and bumpy, covered in tiny, raised tubercles that feel like fine sandpaper.
Produces a simple, unbranched arching inflorescence bearing pendulous, stomach-shaped (gasteriform) pinkish-red flowers with green tips.
