Candelabrum Spurge
Tree-sized succulent, with smooth, angled, columnar branches. Small green or reddish flowers. Milky sap from cuts. Savannas.
Succulent
Numerous, succulent, angled stems radiate ½ m from crown. Spines on the angles. Bright yellow petaloid glands on the involucres look like flowers.
Firestick Plant
Small linear leaves are shed leaving a tangle of smooth green stems. Often used in fence rows with the irritating sap a strong deterent.
Sand Mat
Many kinds of very small spurges grow close to the ground and mostly go unnoticed. Minute flowers in dense heads.
Sand Mat #2
Walkways and heavily grazed ground support some tough, ground-hugging species. Look for white sap.
Poinsettia
Ornamental shrub with sparse branches and large, pentagonal leaves. Terminal leaves below flowers become bright red.
Castor Oil Plant
Conspicuous plant with large, smooth, palmately cleft leaves and spikes of red or green spikey fruits. Mostly in gardens and waste places.
Cassava
Large, palmately compound leaves with 7 to 9 division. A starch-filled root is a staple food crop grown in the tropics worldwide.
Jatropha spicata
Partly succulent plant of dry rocky slopes. Palmate leaves have about 7 narrow divisions.
Kirk's Noseburn
Stinging hairs on herbaceous plant with triangular leaves. The leaves have margins with rounded teeth.
Mhacha
Cultivated at shady margins of vegetable garden and harvested for leafy vegetable. Shallow teeth along margins of pubescent leaves.
Three-seeded Mercury
Long slender spikes of small red flowers. Weak shrub with deltoid leaves with rounded teeth on the margin.
Acalypha
Female inflorescence at top and much smaller male flowers on lateral spikes. Herbaceous, 30cm tall.
Copper Leaf
Red and green leaves are broadly elyptical and have rounded teeth along margin. Showy foliage plant in gardens.
Copper Leaf #2
Leaf margins are softly serrated and outlined in white and sometime reddish. Popular as a foliage plants in tropical gardens.
Croton
Matures to a large forest tree. Large leaves are green on top and silvery beneath. Flowers in long, pendulous spikes.
Broad-leaved Croton
Large, heart-shaped leaves. Spherical, three-seeded capsules. Large shrub or a giant forest tree.
Orange-leaved Croton
Small tree or shrub with old leaves that turn bright orange. Undersides of leaves with coating of white, stellate hairs.
Orange-leaved Croton
Shrub or small tree with slender branches, and often several conspicuous orange leaves. Small flowers and fruit capsules.
Croton alienus
Rare or endangered tree. Elyptical glossy leaves. Small white flowers in spikes.
Crown-of-Thorns
Popular landscape accent with spiny stems and bright red (usually) 'flowers'. Native to Madagascar.
Clutia
Shrubby plant with alternate, elyptical leaves. Separate male and female flowers are clustered in leaf exils.
Phyllanthaceae
Ndzerhe
A shade tree with large elyptic leaves, small yellowish flowers and elypsoid fruits that ripen to black and are sweet. Now placed in the Phyllanthaceae.
Leaf-Flower #1
Horizontal twiglets with numerous, closely spaced ovoid leaves. Small, pale flowers suspended from same twigs.
Leaf-Flower #2
Very similar to Leaf-Flower #1. This one observed at Kakamega Forest in western Kenya.
Leaf-Flower #3
The leaves are thicker and a bit leathery. This one observed near Kiserian, Kenya.