Euphorbia caerulescens

Euphorbia caerulescens, called noors or sometimes green noors and noorsdoring (noors thorn) in Afrikaans, is a perennial stem succulent that grows a clump of erect stems to 1,5 m in height. Underground rhizomes allow for some of the stems to appear unconnected aboveground. A mature plant covers an area of more than 1 m in diameter.

The yellow cyathia of E. caerulescens are bisexual, about 5 mm in diameter. They appear at stem-tips in spring and summer.

The plant in picture shows young spine pairs varying in colour as they age, as well as on the same spine from base to tip. A few small, green, rounded and curving leaves grow freshly on this stem top, soon to disappear. When the stem ridges are more than four they protrude; not so when the four create a square in cross-section, the sides then being about flat.

The plant is common in the arid parts of the Eastern Cape, as far east as Klipplaat and Jansenville and also in the Western Cape, as far west as Calitzdorp in the Little Karoo. 

It grows on rocky outcrops, mostly on the northern slopes of hills, in Nama Karoo and succulent Karoo. The noors can be dominant in the vegetation of its habitat. The species is not considered threatened in habitat early in the twenty first century (Frandsen, 2017; Smith, et al, 2017; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; www.cactus-art.biz; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).