"Michelin Man"? succulent

Over at Scientific Blogging", and at number of other sites, they've announced a list of the ten best new species of 2007. One of the items is a new succulent species, Tecticornia bibenda. It's been dubbed the "Michelin Man", but I think the people who gave it this name had probably been celebrating a bit too much. But it is a neat succulent from Western Australia. It's conservation status is P-3 - "taxa which are known from several populations, at least some of which are not believed to be under immediate threat (i.e. not currently endangered). Such taxa are under consideration for declaration as ‘rare flora’, but are in need of further survey."

The genus consists of quite a few species of salt-tolerant shrubby plants from Australia.