Caudex Plant Encyclopedia

A summer-growing Adenia from northern South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe whose twisted, spiny branches rise from a large, irregular, swollen stem. Only seed-grown plants form a caudex; plants from cuttings never do.

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.

A large caudex plant from South Africa in the grape family, with thick trunk and large leaves, also known as Wild Grape.

A Euphorbia from the Eastern Cape, South Africa, with star-shaped radiating branches from a flat caudex.

A winter-growing Othonna with a woolly, many-headed caudex bearing rosettes of stiff, chalky grey-green leaves with a raised net of veins. Small white marginal teeth, often pointing backwards, give it its name.

A small shrub from the Eastern Cape of South Africa with short, fleshy stems swollen at the base, thin net-veined obovate leaves clustered at the tips and bright yellow daisies on long stalks. Unusually for Othonna, it tends to stay evergreen.

A South African Pachypodium with pink bell-shaped flowers and large underground caudex.

A hardy South African Pachypodium with pink flowers and large underground caudex.

A climber in the dogbane family from eastern South Africa that sends slender twining stems up from an underground tuber. In English it is known as propeller vine.

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.

A South African spurge whose thick carrot-shaped tuber sends up a clump of three-angled branches that twist into tight spirals. The angles bear sharp spines up to 2.5 cm long.

A small, winter-growing Tylecodon that raises many pale, slender, bonsai-like branches from a slightly swollen base. Its branches photosynthesize through their bark and can grow with only microscopic leaves, a rare trait.

A winter-growing Tylecodon whose thick stem and branches are densely covered with warty, yellow-green persistent leaf bases. Narrow leaves cluster at the branch tips, and dangling yellow-green, urn-shaped flowers appear in the leafless summer.