The Tylecodon ventricosus plant in picture, the klipnenta, is growing new stems through surrounding plant debris. No use complaining about squatters that park in one’s space if you’re a veld plant. Dry leaves at the plant base tend to persist in this species.

The brown stems bear sparsely spaced, alternate leaves, clustered near the tips that will still elongate more and produce stem-tip inflorescences. The oblong stem leaves are narrow and pointed, curving in and sessile or very close to that, smaller than the basal leaves. 

The stems are unbranched higher up, straight and erect (Curtis-Scott, et al, 2020; Grenier, 2019; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist).