Great looking small succulent euphorbia with a deep green, knobby globoid body. It bears such a striking similarity to a genus in the cactus family, Gymnocalycium, that it was given the epithet "gymnocalycioides" (resembling Gymnocalycium). It is a fine example of convergent evolution, a process in which the same adaptive traits evolve in distantly related species or groups as a response to similar environments (in this case, hot and dry deserts).