August 10th 2026
Weather: 89F ☀️
There were many fun surprises I found today amongst the Euphorbia while watering today.
Euphorbia ponderosa S. Carter
One of the first things I noticed was finding one of my grafted specimens of Euphorbia ponderosa in flower! I received this plant from a European friend of mine earlier this year and hadn't considered seeing it flower this year. I'm very excited to have the opportunity of pollinating it this year. E. ponderosa is a spiny somalian shrub species which, to my understanding, is being grown from seed in Thailand. That said I haven't seen many of these available commercially. Hopefully I'll be able to set seed on this plant through self-pollination as my other plant is not currently in flower.
Euphorbia invenusta (N.E.Br.) Bruyns
I acquired a few clones of Euphorbia invenusta from Petra last year which have been flowering continuously though I haven't had the time to really inspect its flowering. My plants currently have several shoots that are a a few feet tall with cyathia all over them. I love seeing the hooded cyathia adorned across the cymes. Timing for pollination can be a bit tricky with male flowering overlapping with female flowering, though I've had some luck this year making it work.
Euphorbia suppressa Marx
I was lucky enough to get my hands on a few clones of Euphorbia suppressa in the past, one from Miles Anderson and another from Woody Minnich. Over the last several years I've been working on developing a few generations of seedlings to be able to then produce enough offspring to offer to collectors. Several of my stock plants are currently in seed. The plant below is one of my own seedlings I sowed in the summer of 2024 (Cat# 2024.3.0025).
Euphorbia Cv. Twinkle Twirl
So this is pretty neat. One of the first Euphorbia I ever acquired was a small three-headed Euphorbia Cv. Twinkle Twirl from Jeff Moore at Solana Succulents. Euphorbia Cv. Twinkle Twirl is a hybrid of E. bupluerifolia x E. pulvinata developed by Edward Hummel. It has grown into an 8 inch pot quite nicely at this point. Something uncommon to find on this plant is a seed pod, which I did notice today! I hope the seed pod develops fully to see what comes of it. This cyathia was open-pollinated, so we'll have to see what pops up in the seedling tray.
Euphorbia pedilanthoides Denis
Euphorbia pedilanthoides is a thinly stemmed madagascan shrub that is difficult to acquire in cultivation at the moment. To my knowledge, only a single clone or two were in cultivation until recently, and to my knowledge as well, they are not readily self-fertile. I was extremely lucky enough to be able to find a few seedlings of this species this year which have already begun to flower and bear seed pods. I've collected some seed so far, and found an inflorescence I had bagged a week or so agao finally have its pods explode and provide another clutch of twenty-eight seeds to collect. The seed of E. pedilanthoides are of reasonable size with a bit of dirty-white coloration with dimples throughout. Please forgive my mispelling on the glassine envelope :)
Euphorbia clava Jacq.
Earlier this year I community potted eight Euphorbia clava in a container together to help promote more expedient growth along with making it easier to exclude them from pollination with other nearby South African Euphorbia I keep outside. I've been placing organza bags around sets of seed pods in the past week or two which are now beginning to dry up for collection. Usually the seed pods explode of course, but I've noticed the seed pods of E. clava don't always do so, or only slightly crack instead of completely breaking apart. That was the case today as I collected around a dozen seed pods which then needed to be cracked open by hand to collect the thirty-five seeds within them. The seed pods of E. clava are larger than that of E. pedilanthoides though look similar outside of being more gray-beige.
Euphorbia fanshawei L.C. Leach
The seedlings of the day for me were of Euphorbia fanshawei, a species which resembles *Euphorbia decidua. E. fanshawei is a species primarily native to Zaire and Zambia which forms an underground caudex with succulent spiny stems arising from the apical meristem. These stems dry up and fall off over time, and are more tuberculate than the stems of E. decidua from South Africa. I was quite successful with pollination this year of the batch of mature seedlings I have set aside stock plants. I've been lucky enough to sow two batches of E. fanshawei this year, some in July, and a previous batch in May.
