Caudex Plant Encyclopedia

An Adenia with a massive spherical caudex and thorny branches, very wild appearance.

A frankincense relative caudex plant with white bark and unique branching, increasingly popular.

A Pachypodium from Namibia and Angola that grows into a 3-6 m tree with a bottle-shaped, swollen-based trunk. In the dry season it bears fragrant white flowers, flushed purple outside, on leafless branch tips.

A dwarf from the South Africa–Namibia border that forms a low mound of short branches over a knotty, half-buried caudex. The thick blue-green, jelly-bean-like leaves drop off almost at a touch.

From Socotra Island, growing into a massive bottle tree form, an ultimate rare species.

An endemic Madagascar species from Bongolava with flat caudex and thin branches.

A rare Euphorbia from southern Madagascar with wavy leaves and flat caudex.

A Euphorbia with a Pachypodium-like columnar stem topped by large leaves, glaucous blue-green above and red-violet beneath. Flowers wrapped in dark purple bracts open before the leaves.

A small spurge from south-western Madagascar with a rounded corky caudex, short fat branches and rosettes of crinkled leaves like those of E. decaryi. It forms a bonsai-like plant about 20 cm tall.

The Boojum Tree, iconic caudex tree of Baja California with tall conical trunk.

A rare Fouquieria from Mexico with thick trunk and red flowers.

A "tree ocotillo" from Mexico's Tehuacán Valley with a succulent trunk that tapers gradually upward in a cone. It is one of the few white-flowered Fouquieria and is listed in CITES Appendix I.

Called Elephant Tree from Baja California, with white trunk and pink flowers.

A rare Pachypodium from NW Madagascar with white flowers and thick trunk, difficult to grow.

A rare Pachypodium with red flowers, the only red-flowered species in the genus.