The angled-up branches of Euphorbia maleolens form a ring around the low, above-ground centre of the plant. They become from 8 cm to 20 cm long and 1 cm in diameter, not growing at the same rate or to the same length. Plant colouring is quite varied, whitish in the centre here, green on new growth and purplish on old parts.

There are some cyathia of false flowers at stem-tips, as well as some green fruits already.

The central part of the plant is flat and low, like the centre of a shallow bowl (Germishuizen and Fabian, 1982; iNaturalist; JSTOR; http://www.llifle.com).