Caudex Plant Encyclopedia

A ponytail-palm relative endemic to Mexico's Tehuacán Valley, raising several slender stems from a huge corky base like an elephant's foot. Unlike B. recurvata, its narrow, strongly blue-grey leaves stand stiffly upright.

A Mexican aromatic caudex with peeling bark and fragrant resin.

A Mexican spherical caudex with cork-like large tuber producing fine grass-like leaves.

Called Mexican Tortoise Plant with rounder caudex, summer-growing unlike the African species.

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 spurge-family caudiciform from Texas and north-eastern Mexico with a pale, globe-shaped caudex and grey-green leaves deeply cut into five to seven lobes. Bright pink to poppy-red flowers appear throughout the growing season.

A subspecies of Ficus petiolaris from the dry lands of the Baja California peninsula and Sonora. In Japan it is sold separately from the parent species as "Palmeri", as plants with swollen caudex-like bases.

A fig endemic to Mexico with a yellowish-green trunk and bright green heart-shaped leaves. White tufts of hair in the vein axils on the leaf underside help identify it; in Japan, potted plants with swollen bases are sold as caudiciforms.