Euphorbia tirucalli stem tips

Euphorbia tirucalli growth may show many erect, cylindrical stems, lots of smooth green surfaces. They become from 5 mm to 8 mm in diameter. Hardly any of the small, slender leaves that normally drop off early can be seen here.

In South Africa the plant is distributed along the east coast as well as the north-eastern Lowveld of Mpumalanga and Limpopo. The plant grows widespread in tropical Africa.

E. tirucalli was exported by early seafarers to India and the Far East, where it flourished, adapting easily to a wide range of conditions. Entrepreneurial dreams of growing this plant for extracting firstly rubber and later biofuel have so far come to nothing, yielding only the need for and some interest in further research.

Abandoned plantations of E. tirucalli are still to be seen in semi-arid regions, for instance in north-western Kenya on land that could probably not yield viable food crops anyway (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Wikipedia).