Ruschia calcarea young fruit and keel teeth

The red-topped, freshly grown fruit of Ruschia calcarea is funnel-shaped in its yellow-green, wrinkled base part. Devastated around the wide central section, where the sepals have been rejected as redundant, the bulging flesh is red on top.

Dark, translucent dots on leaf and bract skins show where sunlight penetrates, facilitating photosynthesis inside the leaf bodies. The greyer, opaque surfaces parts between the dots appear dull and leathery.

The joined bases of opposite leaves and bracts may be well separated from previous pairs by elongated internodes, whitish in their lower parts where photosynthesis doesn’t happen.

Keel teeth are not equal in number, size, shape, orientation or distance from each other (Smith, et al, 1998; Herre, 1971; iNaturalist).