A new batch of Euphorbia clandestina stem-tip leaves have appeared above those still keeping the flowers company a little lower down. The new leaves flaunt curved, red-rimmed tips, youthful features that have disappeared from the increasingly tired ones lower down. Older leaves are progressively angled lower, down to the sagging ones living on borrowed time at the base of the photo before they drop off.

Raindrops would be furrowed to the stem and down among the tubercles by this stalkless leaf-shape, at least on the upper leaves. This might be useful for washing rather than watering. Plants have a different, closer relationship with dust and soil than animals and people do.

While the leaves are the plant’s kitchen, the nether parts underground in the soil, the roots, are the pantry or supermarket of the complex, living organism; a cool arrangement shared among most vascular plants (Smith, et al, 2017; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; iNaturalist).