Lancer99's Mostly Euphorbias Topic
Most of my disasters are man-made and not naturaldaiv wrote:More trouble? You sure have your share of natural disasters over there.
I should have realized that cinder block and board construction isn't sturdy unless there's a lot of weight on top. A few small opuntioids on top of a board isn't enough.
I looked back at the pics I took last year and now have verified almost all of my matches, after discovering two plants that rolled under the bottom board. Two I'm not 100% sure about, both Grusonias, G. aggeria and G. bulbispina.
-R
PS We're having more windstorms with 60 mph winds today. All the windows in the greenhouse are open, and I've added cinder blocks on the top shelves, so at worst a few plants will get knocked over and not an entire shelf.
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Thord Håkansson
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2010 8:55 am
- Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Thord,
This is var. decaryi:
The easiest way to tell them apart is that var. decaryi has wider leaves that are much less scalloped on the edges. It also has fatter stems and grows much more slowly than var. spirotricha (exactly the opposite of what I posted before -- don't know what I was thinking!). Spirotricha also (IME) loses most, if not all of its leaves over the winter and ends up looking "leggy," whereas var. decaryi keeps its compact shape.
HTH,
-R
Edit: I was thinking of E. milii x decaryi. E. decaryi var. spirotricha loses some leaves, but not most, over the winter. No excuses, just an embarrassing brain fart.
This is var. decaryi:
The easiest way to tell them apart is that var. decaryi has wider leaves that are much less scalloped on the edges. It also has fatter stems and grows much more slowly than var. spirotricha (exactly the opposite of what I posted before -- don't know what I was thinking!). Spirotricha also (IME) loses most, if not all of its leaves over the winter and ends up looking "leggy," whereas var. decaryi keeps its compact shape.
HTH,
-R
Edit: I was thinking of E. milii x decaryi. E. decaryi var. spirotricha loses some leaves, but not most, over the winter. No excuses, just an embarrassing brain fart.
Last edited by lancer99 on Sun Feb 27, 2011 10:20 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Thord Håkansson
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2010 8:55 am
- Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Thank You for the answer.After comparing Your pictures with my plant it seems that i have ssp.spirotricha although it does not loses leaves during winter,maybe a hybrid(?)or perhaps because it is kept in a warm flat.Anyhow,it´s a very nice plant that flowers well though not as much as my cylindrifolia v tubifera, but then most Euphorbias flowers abundantly,the obesas never stops....
A very interesting thread this,maybe i ought to get a few more "forbies".
A very interesting thread this,maybe i ought to get a few more "forbies".
It smells like spring!
Usually I don't make random statements with no backup, but sometimes you gotta go with your instincts...it just smells like spring.
Normally I'd wait for another month to give the first serious watering to my plants, but it just felt right. We've had highs in the upper 50's/lower 60's for a couple of weeks, and the daytime temps in my sunroom are about 5 degrees higher.
The sunroom is kind of disaster area, with lots of dead leaves and bits of soil from when I clumsily knocked over a few pots.
I only lost eight euphorbias over the winter, seven of them shrubby species.
-R
Usually I don't make random statements with no backup, but sometimes you gotta go with your instincts...it just smells like spring.
Normally I'd wait for another month to give the first serious watering to my plants, but it just felt right. We've had highs in the upper 50's/lower 60's for a couple of weeks, and the daytime temps in my sunroom are about 5 degrees higher.
The sunroom is kind of disaster area, with lots of dead leaves and bits of soil from when I clumsily knocked over a few pots.
I only lost eight euphorbias over the winter, seven of them shrubby species.
-R
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Mr Monopoly
- Posts: 329
- Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2011 1:47 am
- Location: North Olmsted, Ohio (Zone 6B)
I think I was right to go with my springing instinct
A few Euphorbias that are now in bloom, in early spring.
A cutting of Euphorbia royleana, one of the great Indian tree species. 27" tall in a 5" pot, and it still keeps on blooming:
E. bubalina...to be fair, it never stopped blooming over the winter, despite my best attempts to induce a dormant period:
E. pentagona, probably not E. ferox or E. enopla:
E. meloformis fa. magma:
E. columnaris:
E. lenewtonii, one of my fave species (again!) This species always looks unhealthy and like it's about to die, but has proven to be an easy grower, and has some pretty impressive spines for such a little plant. In a 5" pot:
Its cyathia are tiny, under 1/16"/2mm, but pretty if you look very closely...but don't get so close that you get a spine in your eye!
-R
A few Euphorbias that are now in bloom, in early spring.
A cutting of Euphorbia royleana, one of the great Indian tree species. 27" tall in a 5" pot, and it still keeps on blooming:
E. bubalina...to be fair, it never stopped blooming over the winter, despite my best attempts to induce a dormant period:
E. pentagona, probably not E. ferox or E. enopla:
E. meloformis fa. magma:
E. columnaris:
E. lenewtonii, one of my fave species (again!) This species always looks unhealthy and like it's about to die, but has proven to be an easy grower, and has some pretty impressive spines for such a little plant. In a 5" pot:
Its cyathia are tiny, under 1/16"/2mm, but pretty if you look very closely...but don't get so close that you get a spine in your eye!
-R
Euphorbia borenensis is doing its thang again:
Interestingly (?) Euphorbia baioensis was only collected once from one site in Kenya, so no one really knows what its geographical distribution is. But Susan Carter considered it so distinctive that she described it as a new species in 1982. IMHO it's one of the most beautiful euphorbias, because of its symmetrical jet-black spines and the patterns they form.
-R
Interestingly (?) Euphorbia baioensis was only collected once from one site in Kenya, so no one really knows what its geographical distribution is. But Susan Carter considered it so distinctive that she described it as a new species in 1982. IMHO it's one of the most beautiful euphorbias, because of its symmetrical jet-black spines and the patterns they form.
-R
Cute littl'uns.....
When I repotted my euphorbias last spring, I found a few "volunteer" seedlings. Since Euphorbia seed pods are explosive, seedlings can end up just about anywhere. Here are four that I put in a 2-1/4"/5 cm pot. On the right, the dried-up looking one, is E. platyclada (self-fertile), and in front of it is something that might turn out to be E. obesa or a hybrid (they all interbreed.)
More interesting (to me, at least ) are the two on the left, both shrubby species. Some of the shrubby species are self-fertile, others not, so I'm hoping they might be hybrids. In any case, I'm eager to see how they turn out.
After all that blather..... here are the cute littl'uns :
Cheers,
-R
When I repotted my euphorbias last spring, I found a few "volunteer" seedlings. Since Euphorbia seed pods are explosive, seedlings can end up just about anywhere. Here are four that I put in a 2-1/4"/5 cm pot. On the right, the dried-up looking one, is E. platyclada (self-fertile), and in front of it is something that might turn out to be E. obesa or a hybrid (they all interbreed.)
More interesting (to me, at least
) are the two on the left, both shrubby species. Some of the shrubby species are self-fertile, others not, so I'm hoping they might be hybrids. In any case, I'm eager to see how they turn out.After all that blather..... here are the cute littl'uns
:Cheers,
-R