Euphorbia mauritanica early fruit stage

The five stem-tip Euphorbia mauritanica fruits have become too heavy for their stalks to hold erectly. There may be up to nine such fruits growing around the initial male flower at a stem-tip. The peduncle of the overall inflorescence lower down is up to its task, and so are the much thicker and sturdier pedicels of the cyathia overall; only the stalks holding first the ovaries, now the fruits, are found wanting.

Each fruit stalk is still surrounded by its five flat, orange-brown glands, some with crinkly margins. The glands developed earlier at the base of the bisexual pseudoflower or cyathia, usually serving in euphorbias to deliver nectar to pollinators.

There are narrow, bulging ridges between the segments of the three-segmented, green fruit bodies. The styles still persist on top of the fruits at this stage.

Pointed tips of the in-curving and sometimes sideways twisted leaves are visible close to the flowers and their globose, three-segmented fruits (Curtis-Scott, et al, 2020; Frandsen, 2017; Smith, et al, 2017; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; iNaturalist).