Tylecodon paniculatus

Since the botterboom (butter tree) is in a sense a tree (SA Tree List No. 137.1), it forms part of the rather select group of trees that have made it in the largely treeless north-western corner of South Africa. Botterboom flourishes in the Little Karoo and up the southern parts of the west coast that cannot be considered semi-desert and have many trees.

The stout trunk, sometimes with flowers or leaves, is also a presence of note further north in sparsely vegetated Namaqualand, the Richtersveld and southern Namibia among the kokerbome (quiver trees), another Afrikaans local name. It is here where this plants asset of stem succulence, augmented by deciduous leaf succulence, comes in very handy in coping with the all too common droughts.

This magnificent specimen was photographed in Namaqualand in April after flowering, the dry panicle still intact. The fruit is a follicle, made up of five separate carpels, surrounded by the persistent petal-tube (Coates Palgrave, 2002).