Caudex Plant Encyclopedia

A small Madagascan spurge that spreads by creeping rhizomes and bears rosettes of leaves at the stem tips. Its dark red to green leaves are strongly wavy and crisped, turning coppery in summer.

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.

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.

A northern Madagascan Pachypodium with an almost spherical grey caudex and slender, nearly spineless branches. It bears pure white flowers up to 12 cm across, the largest in the genus. CITES Appendix I.

A Pachypodium from the far north of Madagascar with a swollen, flask-shaped caudex, a few slender twisting branches and bright red flowers with a pale green eye. It is smaller than P. baronii in all parts, with very short flower stalks.

Known in Japan as Tekkoumaru. A South African spurge whose brown stem, patterned with neat spiralling leaf scars like a pine cone, is topped by a tuft of long willow-like leaves. CITES Appendix I since March 2026.