Euphorbia bruynsii L.C.Leach

Plant: an unarmed succulent perennial with a spherical or subcylindric tuberous root up to 35 mm diam., and long underground stem or neck. Stem slender, erect, the above ground portion simple or very sparingly branched (branching possibly only when damaged), laxly spirally tuberculate with spreading conical teeth, the distant teeth imparting a somewhat flexuose appearance to the stem. Leaves deciduous, succulent, glabrous, sessile or shortly subpetiolate, somewhat swollen at the base, obovate, narrowly obovate or cuneate-elliptic, often acute or subapiculate, with a very narrow pellucid margin, up to 15 mm long, 3 mm wide, arising from the apex of the tubercles, on young parts usually subtending a ruby axillary bud. Inflorescence cymose, usually dischasial, developing from an initial, terminal, pedicellate, bisexual cyathium; pedicel up to 5 mm long, supported by paired bracts similar to the leaves; cyme branches developing successively from the axils of the bracts, up to 30 mm long, becoming shorter with successive forkings, each bearing paired bracts and a shortly pedicellate, bisexual cyathium, similar in all respects to the initial cyathium; a third branch subtended by a similar bract, is sometimes developed from very shortly below the paired bracts of the initial cyme. Involucre deeply cup-shaped up to 5 mm long, 3-4 mm diam. including the glands, densely hairy inside, outside glabrous, green, reddish towards the apex and eventually becoming yellowish; glands 5, transversely oblong-reniform, up to 1.4 mm x 0.6 mm, slightly convex on the pitted upper surface, with copious nectar, green with brown-red recurved margins, eventually becoming entirely red-brown; lobes 5, subquadrate, fimbriate, densely white hairy on both sides, ±0.75 mm long. Male flowers with white, sparsely pubescent pedicels ±2.5 mm long; filaments faintly pink, glabrous, 1-1.25 mm long; anther thecae cream becoming yellowish, pollen yellow-orange; bracteoles filamentous, villous, ±3.5 mm long. Female flower glabrous, erect on a pedicel ±2 mm long; styles ±3 mm long, united in a column for about half their length, free above, laterally compressed with a deep ventral groove, spreading recurved with the enlarged apex very shortly bilobed, the pale yellow somewhat translucent lobes widely laterally divergent. Capsule 3-lobed, glabrous, cream, more or less broadly ovoid, ±6 mm diam., 4 mm high, shortly exserted from the involucre on a stout pedicel, 4.5-5 mm long, ±1 mm diam. Seed more or less ovoid, acute at the apex, more or less truncate at the base, somewhat obscurely obtuse-angled at the sides, smooth, finely farinose, cream shading to brownish towards the base, with a slightly raised suture.