I acquired this euphorbia today and have spent several hours looking at hundreds of photos without running across an ID for this one.




The main trunk is four sided while the thinner branches are 3 sided
Does anyone recognise it?
Thanks

Richard

@Baja_Costero, got any thoughts?

I do not recognize the plant. There is a series of 10 volumes on the succulent Euphorbias called the Euphorbia Journal, which may be hard to find but should still be available (a few decades after its publication), and I would imagine you will find your plant in there. At least you could spend some time looking through pictures in there and you may find all the info you seek.

Baja_Costero said:I do not recognize the plant. There is a series of 10 volumes on the succulent Euphorbias called the Euphorbia Journal, which may be hard to find but should still be available (a few decades after its publication), and I would imagine you will find your plant in there. At least you could spend some time looking through pictures in there and you may find all the info you seek.

It is available at Amazon for 35 dollars per volume. It was last printed in the 1990s before AGP3 and AGP4 which puts it out of sync with today's taxonomy. I was looking to see if anyone might have digitized it but found no PDFs or torrents available at the usual places.

There are a plethera of University sites that have indicies of plant photos that I can go through, which could take months or even years.

For now I will tentatively call it Euphorbia grandidens and keep looking to find a better fit or affirmation.
THANKS

Richard

I don't have the Euphorbia Journals, but I do have The Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants in 7 Volumes. The E Journals are amazing, and I have held them, but not kept them; they are very hard to search.
The plant in question seems like a common sort, and yet I cannot find it.
E. tenuispinosa is close.

Iochroma said:I don't have the Euphorbia Journals, but I do have The Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants in 7 Volumes. The E Journals are amazing, and I have held them, but not kept them; they are very hard to search.
The plant in question seems like a common sort, and yet I cannot find it.
E. tenuispinosa is close.

As are e. gradidens and e. longispina, but not quite... or, there is so little agreed upon info, that positive id for thos names is dubious at best.
Thus far I am going with e. gradidens, but still hunting for reliable collaboration or a better fit

Thanks

Richard

E. tenuispinosa is described in the Euphorbia Journal (vol. 6, errata vol. 7) as having a tuberous, not rhizomatous habit and being "laxly branched and more or less scandent to nearly 2m high"; (Vol.4) 4-angled, slender stems with fine spines and prickles on narrowly decurrent spine shields, with a number of local forms.

Various other plants are described as they may be similar to tenuispinosa, and of these some can be excluded (taruensis based on spines, or lack thereof). E. exilispina was originally identified as a form of tenuispinosa but was subsequently treated as its own species, with (Vol.9) "much stouter, only shortly decurrent spine shields"; this plant is related to E. isacantha (distinctive very long prickles).

E. grandidens (usually 3-sided stems, occasionally 1 to 4-sided, branches that are thin, up to 2cm) is described in relation to other similar species (E. sekukuniensis, evansii, keithii, tetragona) but the first can be excluded based on the absence of a conspicuous horny margin (Vol2). E. grandidens has (Vol3) "angles are toothed with a distinct tubercular cushion" (distinguishing it from evansii, along with its greater size) and its spines are (Vol3) "frequently accompanied by a pair of minute prickles at their base" and its cyathia appear in (Vol9) "solitary cymes from each flowering eye".

E. longispina is a smaller plant (to 1.5m) with long spines (6-20+ mm) and 5-6 angled branches (Vol1) though Susan Carter describes it later as having sharply 4-angled stems with spines 6-7mm long.

Baja_Costero said:E. tenuispinosa is described in the Euphorbia Journal (vol. 6, errata vol. 7) as having a tuberous, not rhizomatous habit and being "laxly branched and more or less scandent to nearly 2m high"; (Vol.4) 4-angled, slender stems with fine spines and prickles on narrowly decurrent spine shields, with a number of local forms.

Various other plants are described as they may be similar to tenuispinosa, and of these some can be excluded (taruensis based on spines, or lack thereof). E. exilispina was originally identified as a form of tenuispinosa but was subsequently treated as its own species, with (Vol.9) "much stouter, only shortly decurrent spine shields"; this plant is related to E. isacantha (distinctive very long prickles).

E. grandidens (usually 3-sided stems, occasionally 1 to 4-sided, branches that are thin, up to 2cm) is described in relation to other similar species (E. sekukuniensis, evansii, keithii, tetragona) but the first can be excluded based on the absence of a conspicuous horny margin (Vol2). E. grandidens has (Vol3) "angles are toothed with a distinct tubercular cushion" (distinguishing it from evansii, along with its greater size) and its spines are (Vol3) "frequently accompanied by a pair of minute prickles at their base" and its cyathia appear in (Vol9) "solitary cymes from each flowering eye".

E. longispina is a smaller plant (to 1.5m) with long spines (6-20+ mm) and 5-6 angled branches (Vol1) though Susan Carter describes it later as having sharply 4-angled stems with spines 6-7mm long.

Based on my interpretation of the above, E. Gradidens seems like a best fit, even with it's 4 sided stem, with maybe e. longispina comming in second.

What think you?

Thanks so much

Richard

If I had to choose among those 3 options, I agree with you.