Playing dead and well-camouflaged: more weird sci-fi plants

in succulents •  7 years ago 

euphorbia cylindrifolia.jpg

Euphorbia cylindrifolia is originally from Madagascar and if you grow it in full sun, the leaves are brown and look dead although if kept outside the tropics, the leaves go greener. If they are grown from seed, the develop a large underground tuber over time but this one will not because it was grown from a stem cutting.
This is the only time I have seen a plant with brownish flowers, here's a closeup:

euphorbia flower.jpg

Euphorbia can be difficult to grow because they like lots of sun, heat and regular water but will rot if the soil around their roots remains damp so they need to be grown in clay pots with coarse gravel that drains very quickly. I love euphorbia but I killed all of mine rather quickly the first time I attempted growing them a couple of years ago but I am trying again. Hopefully I have learned my lessons and I keep the new bunch I got alive this time.

On Saturday, our local succulent society is having its autumn show and I will be allowed to go in before it opens to take photos. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures of the plants entered into the competitions for everyone to see. After the nasty plumbing surprise, I'm going to have to restrain myself from buying too much although I keep telling myself that these plants are an investment. It is a long-term goal of mine to start growing collectable succulents for sale and trade at shows like this one

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  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Nature is always admirable and those flowers are exotic.
These plants are very resistant in those conditions of sun and drainable gravel.
I will love to see your photos. Surely there will be beautiful specimens to appreciate.
Enjoy the event Greetings and always my affection, @nikv.

Thank you @armonia

Wow, that is pretty cool, Never seen anything like it. Hard to believe they are alive unless you really look closely at it.

Ooooo there's such a thing as a succulent society? That's pretty cool.

Yup! Societies for plant nerds

Interesting plants. They grow on gravel. I did not know that it was possible.

This family of plants are evolved to grow in extreme conditions. In their native environment, they grow in sand dunes near the coast

That is really unusual, and the flowers are great. I haven't seen anything like it before.
The suculent show sounds like you're in for a suprise.

I some that left me drooling, yes

Am I the only one that thinks they look like prehistoric? Like they existed with dinosaurs!

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

A plants go, they are highly evoved, they aren't primitive like moss and ferns, which did exist in the time of the dinosaurs but they do have a very archaic look

Ahh cool! I have not been to a plant trade show before... so this is how the live plant looks??

Yes! You should try going to a succulent show. It will be bad for your pocket, though

I've never seen a flower this brown before. The autumn show sounds really interesting, I can't wait to see the photos.

I put some up now. There will be more tomorrow

Interesting contents thank u for sharing such post
It’s always important to know something new

@nikv This plant is developed in excellent conditions in our semi-arid soils here in Venezuela ... Thank you for showing this plant that I really did not know it.
Regards. STEEM ON !.


When comes to plants I am a complete ignoramus. The name Euphorbia though, to my great surprise, sounded very familiar.

So I did a search, and the mystery was immediately solved. It belongs to the same genus and family as Euphorbia pulcherrima, commonly known as Poinsettia or Christmas Flower!

I remembered the name because I was searching to find how to keep one Poinsettia, that was presented to us during last Christmas, alive.

![poinsettias-620.jpg]
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(the image is from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-season-for-poinsettias/ )

Euphorbia is a very large and diverse family