Euphorbia caput-medusae stems individually from the sand

The nearly erect branches of Euphorbia caput-medusae may protrude from west coast sand as if they are merely congregating for a meeting, not belonging to one plant. Curvature and positioning do suggest the shallowly buried caudex base shared by them all. This broad and short, more or less globose caudex grows to more than 20 cm wide, developing the green branches on its top in concentric circular arrangement.

The white spots upon the stems are the tips of prominent tubercles where short-lived leaves stalks had dropped off earlier from the spineless (or rather spine-free?) plant (Frandsen, 2017; Manning and Goldblatt, 1996).