Euphorbia mauritanica fruit too heavy for their stalks

The five angular, brown, bract-like glands are still intact below each fruit at this Euphorbia mauritanica stem-tip. These glands started off yellow, positioned close to the rest of the female cyathia. Elongation of the ovary stalk results in this configuration.

A small yellow brush of persistent styles is erect on top of each green, three-segmented fruit.

Although thick, the green fruit stalks here lack the resources to uphold their fruits in exemplary fashion, allowing a slackness of presentation to set in.

The earlier, central, male cyathia is nowhere to be seen, its pollen-providing function short-lived; occasionally absent from the cluster. Fruit production is a bigger undertaking, the female pseudo-flowers or cyathias continued in this industrious venture, comprising a ring of six units (Smith, et al, 2017; Frandsen, 2017; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015).