Pachypodium lealii is a small-growing bottle tree from southern Angola and Namibia, producing creamy white flowers on a branch well-armed with spines. With time, the small specimen in the Garden's greenhouses will produce a swollen trunk, the basis for the common name. Like other members of the Apocynaceae or Oleander family, the milky sap of the leaves and stems is highly toxic and, in fact, Namibian hunters often used the sap to poison their arrow tips. The sap can also cause blindness if it gets into the eye.