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Euphorbia meloformis; photograph author not stated, no rights reserved CC0author not stated, no rights reserved · observed growing wild · 2026-05-20

Euphorbia meloformis Aiton

Melon spurge; Donkey Food; Melon Milkball; Zebra Milkball

Euphorbiaceae · Cape Provinces · listed by its genus as a cactus or succulent

No habitat climate
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Euphorbia meloformis, photograph (c) Andrew Hankey, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Euphorbia meloformis, photograph (c) Andrew Hankey, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Euphorbia meloformis, photograph (c) Andrew Hankey, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Euphorbia meloformis, photograph (c) Andrew Hankey, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Euphorbia meloformis, photograph (c) Andrew Hankey, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Euphorbia meloformis, photograph (c) Andrew Hankey, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) 23 photographs ›

Summary

Euphorbia meloformis the melon spurge, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Euphorbia, native to the Cape Provinces of South Africa. A succulent, it has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Euphorbia meloformis", CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the genus · Euphorbia

Euphorbia is a large and diverse genus of flowering plants, commonly called spurge, in the family Euphorbiaceae.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Euphorbia", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent, listed under the genus Euphorbia in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “succulent subshrub”.

Nothing derived: no habitat climate for this species.
How this section is made

Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.

Group. Listed under the genus Euphorbia in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “succulent subshrub”. A group is taken only where Kew's description of the species agrees with the table's listing. The table gives no figure and no prose; the cold floor is the habitat's alone.

Climate across the habitat

No habitat climate can be derived: 101 in-range records, none placed to within 10 km. 101 of the 101 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or to no stated accuracy and fewer than three decimals or by something other than a person's observation, and cannot place a climate cell, though they count for the map and its marker.

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeCape Provinces · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker-33.756, 25.667 · in the densest population, 99 records (98% of those in range)
Kew's description“succulent subshrub” · “subtropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 101 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 10 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 61 km away. No climate across the range is derived for this species. 101 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 101 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Euphorbia meloformis, photograph 1did not loadEuphorbia meloformis, photograph 2did not loadEuphorbia meloformis, photograph 3did not loadEuphorbia meloformis, photograph 4did not loadEuphorbia meloformis, photograph 5did not loadEuphorbia meloformis, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: (c) Andrew Hankey, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (6).

Other Euphorbia 400 in the reference

Euphorbia abdelkuri Euphorbia abdelkuri Abd al Kuri euphorbia Photo: CC BY-SA, Stan ShebsEuphorbia abyssinica Euphorbia abyssinica Abyssinian spurge Photo: CC BY-SA, Frank VincentzEuphorbia acanthothamnos Euphorbia acanthothamnos Greek spiny spurge Photo: CC BY, Eleftherios KatsillisEuphorbia adenensis Euphorbia adenensis Euphorbiaceae Photo: CC BY, Joey BomEuphorbia aeruginosa Euphorbia aeruginosa Miniature Saguaro Photo: CC0, author not statedEuphorbia aggregata Euphorbia aggregata Pincushion euphorbia Photo: CC BY-SA, Frank VincentzEuphorbia albipollinifera Euphorbia albipollinifera Euphorbiaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Frank VincentzEuphorbia alfredii Euphorbia alfredii Euphorbiaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Frank VincentzEuphorbia alluaudii Euphorbia alluaudii Euphorbiaceae Photo: CC BY, amantedarmaninEuphorbia ambovombensis Euphorbia ambovombensis Euphorbiaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Frank VincentzEuphorbia ammak Euphorbia ammak Euphorbiaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Frank VincentzEuphorbia ampliphylla Euphorbia ampliphylla Euphorbiaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Medium69 (William Crochot) all 401 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Euphorbia falsa; Euphorbia infausta; Euphorbia meloformis f. falsa; Euphorbia meloformis f. magna; Euphorbia meloformis subsp. meloformis and 7 more. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Euphorbiaceae
Described by
Aiton
Native to
Cape Provinces
Wild records
101 in range · 10 open

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21
Habitat climate climate nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22101 in-range records, none placed to within 10 km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22none of the photographs on this page is credited to GBIF: those shown are other sources', and GBIF's were the same photographs or were set aside by the photograph rules
Wikimedia Commons commons answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 5 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

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