A plant of roadsides, path verges and waste places (ruderal), it is thought to have come from Central and South America, and to have become widely established in Australia and Southern Africa.

[1] The species forms dense mats of stems and leaves during the rainy season.

During the dry season or in drought, material above ground dies off and the dormant plant is sustained by its fleshy taproot.

[2] The species was illustrated as far back as 1732 by Johann Jacob Dillenius in his Hortus Elthamensis, vol.

1, and described as "Achyracantha repens foliis Bliti pallidi", and again in 1836 by Jean-Christophe Heyland (1792-1866) in Histoire naturelle des Iles Canaries, vol.