Sol Solis

En route to Whistler, BC.

Euphorbia polygona

The traditional name for this plant is Euphorbia horrida var. major, and this is how one would normally find it labeled in a collection. Recently, however, all the plants that had been regarded as varieties of Euphorbia horrida have been merged into E. polygona. This makes sense, since the dividing line between the two species has always been problematic, but it is still annoying to collectors who wish names would stay the same. Flowers in Euphorbia arise from the middle of a structure called a cyathium, with five petal-like glands in a ring around the outside (in the photo, the glands are rust-orange, but they could also be dark purple or green in other forms of E. polygona). Each cyathium is located atop a stalk (peduncle) that later dries and hardens to form a spine. From South Africa.