Sticks on Fire Milk Bush, Euphorbia tirucalli, The Living Desert

Euphorbia tirucalli is known as the pencil tree, firestick plant, finger tree, Indian tree spurge, Madagascar milkbush, naked lady, sticks on fire, milk bush, or sticks on fire milk bush. The common nomenclature is just a mess for this species! It is called the milk bush because it produces a poisonous latex which can be converted to the equivalent of gasoline; it is a hydrocarbon plant! Hydrocarbons are the most basic form of fuel we use, having carbon single-bond chains saturated with hydrogen bonds; gasoline/petrol is mostly octane, which is an 8 carbon single-bond chain with all other chemical bonds occupied by hydrogen atoms. The chemist Melvin Calvin, whom I am named after, proposed using this tree to produce oil; he estimated that 10-50 barrels of oil per acre per crop is achievable on desert and chaparral land that would otherwise lie fallow as it is unsuitable for growing any other crops.

The milky latex in this plant is toxic, as are "milks" from any other plant, and causes severe irritation with the skin with rash-like symptoms. Getting in the eyes may cause blindness for a few days. Flush the contacted areas with water for as long as you can tolerate and as often as you can. Ingestion of the milk sap causes burning to the insides and can result in death!

The leaves of the pencil tree are small and fall off easily, leaving bare stems visible. The "sticks on fire" and "firestick plant" names come from the phase at which some of top stems are yellow and look like exploding firecrackers or fire. The "spurge" name comes from trees of the Euphorbia genus being known as spurges.

Euphorbia tirucalli has a wide distribution in Africa, and could also be native in the islands surrounding Africa as well as the Arabian peninsula, but has been purposely introduced to other tropical regions. It is found in China, Indonesia, India, and the Phillipines. It has become naturalized in some areas of the U.S. such as in California and Florida, two typical "ports" for invasive species due to high populations and heavy trade, along with the fact that those two states have climates that are perfect for species invasions.