Abstract
Bisexual, geophytic herbs or spineless succulent shrubs with slender cylindrical branches. Leaves alternate, ovate to lanceolate, fleeting in succulents, not arising on raised tubercles, estipulate. Synflorescences terminal and ± sessile on branches surrounded by whorl of bracts in whose axils rays terminated by a further cyathium develop forming umbel (sometimes further rays developing around these cyathia), bracts often differently shaped from leaves. Cyathia bisexual or unisexual (then males larger than females and with more glands); glands 4–8 (10), elliptic and flat with entire margins or crescent-shaped with two lateral horns on outer margins, without petaloid appendages; male florets with glabrous or pubescent pedicels. Capsule obtusely 3-lobed, smooth, glabrous, 3–8 mm diam., exserted, dehiscing explosively. Seeds 3 per capsule, ellipsoidal to oblong, smooth to slightly rugulose, carunculate.
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Bruyns, P.V. (2022). Euphorbia subg. Esula. In: Euphorbia in Southern Africa. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49399-8_2
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