Euphorbia virosa

Euphorbia virosa grows in a vast area from the Orange river (South Africa) to the north of Namibia and South Angola. It is a slow-growing but vigorous wide-branching cactus-like shrub or small tree with angled, upright, leafless and spiny stems, forming fairly dense clumps of growth, up to 1-1.5 metres, occasionally to 3 metres across and high; the numerous branches usually arise in whorls from the base conferring it a candelabra-like shape which is similar in appearance to the unrelated organ pipe cacti of the Americas. The plant is protected against over-heating by its irregular stem and light thorns that reflect the sunlight. It is well named, the "venomous euphorbia," for the virulent poison of its milky latex, an effective defence against most herbivores Common names: Poison Tree, Gifboom, poisonous spurge Stem: Main stem (trunk) very short at most 30 cm in diameter, divided into large numbers of basal whorled, spreading and curved ascending branches, rarely rebranched 50-60(-70)