Im new to this forum, and i will not post a lot.
Anyway, im curious about this weird euphorbia (left most plant), my guess its either a hybrid between an obesa and pseudoglobosa(right most), or caespitosa cultivar? or something else Im fairly new to growing euphorbias, where as ive been growing other types of succulents(aloeae, crassulaceae) and cacti for 6,5 years now.
Please confirm or deny my suspicions .

I think they are Euphorbia obesa.

Initially, i thought so too...
It was the first plant i bought(out of the three), thinking it was an obesa.(i did buy it a week before the center one)
But some details made me rethink
-obesa rarely clumps, and usually its really old
-obesa doesnt have protruding leaf remnants(at least thats what i think those protrusions are anyway)
-and finally, every obesa seedling ive looked up has their growth center flat, or concave like in the obesa that ive purchased.

The one on the far left with 3 in the pot? Not E. obesa but I'm not sure what it is.

It could be a hybrid between E. obesa and something else... or something distinct. I couldn't say for sure, but I'd favor the first option. I've seen some hybrids between E. obesa and E. polygona or E. mammillaris that look sort of similar, with the raised center and the vestigial leaves. My experience with Euphorbias is limited so it could also be lots of other things.

Ive seen pictures of a plant like mine, but the site was bugged/taken down/out of business.
Unfortunately, that only confirmed that other plants like this existed, not what they are.
The only hint i could give you is that it probably came from a dutch nursery. That being said, ive never seen this one in their online catalogues....

I'm curious to hear if anyone can nail this down.

Because Euphorbia obesa (and polygona and various others) have sexes, that is to say separate male and female plants, they require another plant of the right sex for pollination. If there isn't a breeding pair of male and female plants of the same species in close proximity, another male Euphorbia may do the pollination, giving rise to hybrids. Euphorbias are not real widely promiscuous (I am a non-expert, this just my experience) but similar-shaped plants can definitely pollinate each other. So you should leave the door wide open to hybrids until or unless you find a matching species.

There are some Euphorbia obesas that clump a bit, and I don't know if that's hybrid character, but it happens. I have one with 3 offsets and it otherwise looks true to the species (to my non-expert eye). The hybrids of obesa with clumping/branching plants (eg. polygona, mammillaris) tend to end up clumping or branching. I would imagine there are vast succulent nurseries in Holland where the parentage of any hybrid could be pretty wide open, with many possibilities. Including hybrids of hybrids... the few Euphorbia hybrids I've grown from seed may or may not be fertile, but more often than not they are. I hope that information is somehow helpful.

I am aware that euphoriba obesa is dioecius. The reason i posted this, is the part that is bothering me, is that this plant is "common"
enough to be found in wholesale, but when it came to id-ing it, I came to halt. Like i said, i think that a euphorbia pseudoglobosa is one parent, but i dont know which euphorbia species are compatible or not...
eg, euphorbia suzannae and obesa are both compatible with burplefolia, but not each other(at least thats whats google images shows). But why im not 100 % certain is that most globosa and pseudoglobsa is that they retain more globosas' features rather tham obesa(stem shape, number of "ribs", long woody protrusions), where as in my plant , they seem to be less obvious.
i dunno, maybe its apperance will change with age, maybe not.
Still, would be cool if could pollinate the obesa with another euphorbia.

Pollinate away!

skopjecollection said:The only hint i could give you is that it probably came from a dutch nursery. That being said, ive never seen this one in their online catalogues....

When a nursery is growing plants true from seed and a random hybrid creeps in, that hybrid has to be set aside. You aren't generally going to see those hybrids in the catalog. They will be kept and propagated if they are interesting, maybe even named if they're great, or otherwise they will most likely be passed on unlabeled to the consumer at a lower price point. I get rid of most of my hybrids and only keep a few. I don't know the back story on your plant but perhaps this may partly explain how it came to you unlabeled. I brought up dioecy to explain the specific mechanism that often accounts for random hybrids popping up unexpectedly among plants like Euphorbias when a female is flowering in the absence of a nearby male of the same species.

Yes, bupleurifolia is surprisingly compatible, and the obesa hybrids with it are good looking. The bupleu x susannae crosses are also pretty. They may or may not be fertile (one of my plants does not flower) but the fertile ones can be crossed back onto the bupleu parent, and the offspring are fertile. Not to diverge too far from the ID question, just to share my experience with Euphorbia hybrids (which has to do with bupleu more than the others) and emphasize that hybrids of hybrids (or backcrossed hybrids like the one I just mentioned) are very much possible. Getting a more firm ID for your plant will require more expert knowledge than my own, or maybe just letting it grow up and develop some more personality.

These Euphorbias are indeed quite intriquing especially when they become hybrids, very outlandish looking plants indeed. Hard when there is no tag, it will become a noid.

skopjecollection, it will be a bit of a balancing act if it is a hybrid already, nevertheless just treat with caution when watering, really hates being too wet, prefers to be in a very warm environment, so I hide these types indoors during winter here.

Don't know if this will help you but, here is a Euphorbia obesa x polygona hybrid I have acquired last May 2017:

Really improved a lot after it went through our long dry summer here, I have to step up watering a bit when we really start getting into the high 90F's.:


This is another noid Euphorbia obesa hybrid I got: just enjoying the growth it does inspite of being a noid:


Good luck on your Euphorbias, they are lovely succulent gems!

I will post on another euphorbia ID later, the issue being enopla vs similar to enopla.
I think my plant looks like something in between your first and third picture.
As for the second one, those leaves kind of remind like those belong to pulvinata , or to some depictions of ferox(dont have a surefire way to tell ferox from others).

I'm responding late, but I was reading this because of a Euphorbia of my own which was initially egg-shaped but has grown more ball-shaped. Initially I thought it was because I provided better lighting so it became less-etoliated. But it has also changed colors from a milky blue to a purer green, and offset.

I'm not a Euphorbia expert but from what I've absorbed, there is more natural phenotypical variation in some species and clades of Euphorbia (especially Clade A Rhizanthium) than others, and it's greater than horticulturalists (we) sometimes remember to give credit for because it does not occur across all species of Euphorbia or within a single species. It also occurs differently in cultivation than it would in habitat. This is an important point because it is inconsistent.

For example, sometimes what we call a fertile hybrid of Euphorbia meloformis might just be an unusual variation of the straight species. And what we might think of as a Euphorbia obesa hybrid because it offsets a lot might actually just be the straight species, but an individual plant which is more prone to offsetting (and thus made it a better candidate for horticulture). These kind of variations are more common in some Euphorbias. And because there can be wide phenotypical variation, even when we do have verifiable hybrids, we can't go by how they look in determining parentage.

Anywya, here is the Euphorbia which made me first start digging for answers:



It used to be more columnar and darker in color, but it has become rounder/fatter and greener. It originally had 5 offsets and now it has 6. lol I'm not sure of the species/hybrid/variety just from looking at it, and with my current understanding I'm not sure I completely trust anyone who says they know what it is.

@skopjecollection, if any of this is not helpful feel free to ignore me. Just wanted to add my thoughts and experience. I wish I could find the pictures of when I first got it. I know I took them, but I don't remember where I put them.

Just saw this photo on this site , and it made me wonder....Euphorbia tubiglans?????

Do you mean my plant? If so, I don't know. I gave up trying to figure it out. I showed it to compare with yours. Sometimes Euphorbias just aren't that easy to identify, whether hybrids or species.

Not your plant, no. Saw some kind of featured photo on gardenweb. under Recent photos ....

Ah, gotcha.

I think this was the photo that caught your eye, in the recent photos section.


But I have no idea whether they are related. E. tubiglans seems to be special in having a caudex at or below ground level, separate from the sausage-like stems which look vaguely polygona or obesa-like. Here is a pretty good example of an older seed-grown plant.

http://www.bihrmann.com/caudic...

To my knowledge, branch clones do not make caudexes. Maybe thats why.