Word.ws English Dictionary

African milk barrel

African milk barrel noun: a type of succulent plant, resembling a small cactus, of species Euphorbia polygona var. horrida, previously known as Euphorbia horrida.

african milk barrel: a type of succulent plant, resembling a small cactus, of species Euphorbia polygona var. horrida,...
Image: Stan Shebs, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

African milk barrel (uncountable)

  1. A type of succulent plant, resembling a small cactus, of species Euphorbia polygona var. horrida, previously known as Euphorbia horrida.
    • Also called "African milk barrel," this plant has a beautiful silver skin. The lower part is wooden, rather like a tree trunk.2020 March 10, Misa Matsuyama, “Euphorbia horrida”, in The Gardener's Guide to Succulents: A Handbook of Over 125 Exquisite Varieties of Succulents and Cacti, Tuttle Publishing, →ISBN
    • African milk barrel is a clump-forming stem succulent native to South Africa, with grey-green stems covered in reddish brown thorns. Flowers form in summer at the tip of each stem.2023 April 11, Paul Rees, The Kew Gardener's Guide to Growing Cacti and Succulents, Frances Lincoln, →ISBN, page 83

Origin of African milk barrel

Named for the white latex released whenever one of the cylindrical stems is pierced or cut.

Questions about African milk barrel

What does African milk barrel mean?
African milk barrel means a type of succulent plant, resembling a small cactus, of species Euphorbia polygona var. horrida, previously known as Euphorbia horrida.
What part of speech is African milk barrel?
African milk barrel is a noun.

Words near African milk barrel in the dictionary

  1. African marigold
  2. African marigolds
  3. African massage
  4. African massages
  5. African medlar
  6. African milk barrel
  7. African milk tree
  8. African millet
  9. African mole cricket
  10. African mole crickets
  11. African myrrh

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: African milk barrel (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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