Euphorbia stolonifera

Euphorbia stolonifera, commonly in Afrikaans the rankmelkbos (twining milk bush) or kruipmelkbos (creeping milk bush), is a stem succulent developing a tangled clump of cylindrical, pencil-like stems from 20 cm to 60 cm long or tall. There is an underground rhizome.

The smooth stems in shades of grey-green, blue-green and some purple become long and branch sparsely. Narrow leaves growing near stem-tips don’t last long. The leaf dimensions are about 10 mm long and 5 mm wide.

The species distribution is mainly in the Western Cape from Swellendam and the Little Karoo into the Northern Cape and Namibia. The photo was taken on the Minwater farm near Oudtshoorn.

The habitat is variable arid, stony scrub, mostly growing in clayey soils. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Smith, et al, 2017; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).