The Variegated Thumb

I was able to attend a meteorology conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia during the first week of June.  I had never been to Nova Scotia before and I needed to stay in the city for the week, but I was still able to get in a little sight-seeing.  Along with some historical sights, I visited the Public Gardens, which is a Victorian Garden originally established in 1867.

The gardens are well maintained and well used by locals.  I was surprised by the number of plants and trees in bloom while I was there.  As you can see in the map above, there is a large pond (including ducks) and a couple of smaller water features.  There is also a nice bandstand, which is a common music venue during the Summer.

Apparently the gardens were badly damaged in September 2003 by Hurricane Juan.  Many large trees were destroyed.  When I was there, the signs had all been covered over with new growth.

Some of my favorite plants were the orange Maple trees (pictured above), the rhododendrons (above) and the tulip beds (below).  I also saw a planting of neat Euphorbias, which might have been ‘Tiny Tim.’

See my photo album here.

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The more I learn about plant taxonomy, the more I learn about plant taxonomy.  That may sound simple, but it’s true.  Generally, my lessons in plant taxonomy consist of learning a new botanical name.  I’m slowly building this big dictionary of names that encompasses all of the plants on the planet!  The real learning comes in all of the connections that I see - sometimes with my eyes, other times with the names.

I have been fascinated to find plants whose botanical names indicate that they are related, either in the same Genus or by Family, when I cannot see any resemblances in the related plants.  Probably the most obvious example of this scenario is with the genus Euphorbia.

The genus Euphorbia contains more than 2000 unique species of plants, and probably well over 10,000 hybrids and cultivars.  Can you believe that!?!  I mean, as a little kid, that’s probably the number you would guess for how many plants are in the world.  But no, that’s just how many species of Euphorbias there are!

Euphorbias range from very severe cactus-looking plants to more soft and fuzzy herbaceous-looking plants.  Some are insular, which means they are endemic to an island.  Here’s an idea of the contrast of the Euphorbia genus:

What!?!  Those two plants are in the same genus?  You might as well tell me that this tree is also a Euphorbia!

Oh, it is!

I don’t really know what the qualifications are for putting plants in the same genus.  The plants are supposed to follow the same family rules as those we use for our own families - they are supposed to claim the same ancestors.  [I'm related to my sister and my 2nd cousin because of common ancestors - parents and grandparents, respectively.]  So, the two plants pictured above are supposed to have descended from the same plant at some point.  It would be interesting to study what environmental conditions led to such different species attributes.  I’m sure someone has studied that.  Euphorbia is a pretty well-known, popular genus.

Currently DNA studies are still pretty costly and I don’t know how much work has been done on the genus Euphorbia.  Another criterion for putting plants into genera is to create reasonable compactness.  The word “reasonable” is an ambiguous measure, but I would say that the Euphorbia genus is overly-large in comparison with 95% of other plant genera.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple years down the road I hear that the Euphorbia genus is going to be ripped into two, three or even 15 pieces.  I’m sure all the little children of the world will be in shock, kind of like when Czechoslovakia became two countries or when Pluto was informed that it was no longer a planet.

The one attribute of which I am aware that all Euphorbias have is the milky sap inside the plants.  I don’t suggest snapping any of your Euphorbias apart to see, but most people have seen the white sap when a Poinsettia leaf breaks off the plant.  This sap is supposedly present in all Euphorbias.

Many Euphorbias have very similar inflorescences.  They are little bell shapes borne on tall stems, with leaves right up to the blooms.  You’ll see the similarities in the pictures below.

The Perennial Shrubs

I’m just becoming familiar with the group of Euphorbias that are grown outdoors in the mid-latitudes gardens.  They are commonly called Spurges, but usually called by one of their cultivar names, such as ‘Chameleon,’ ‘Tiny Tim,’ or ‘Blackbird.’  I have one of these plants (’Excalibur’) planted in my corner garden and pictured lower in this post.

These are really neat shrubs because of the color contrast in their foliage.  And even though these plants grow in similar conditions in the garden as Azaleas and other tough shrubs, they still have a succulent aspect to them.  I don’t generally picture succulents stuck in between Irises and Barberry bushes.

The Succulents

I don’t know for sure, but I would guess that the majority of Euphorbias are considered succulents.  Many of these have the characteristic spikiness that we generally call a “cactus” and have only small leaves that quickly fall away.  The stems themselves do the photosynthesis, in these cases.

There is an interesting distinction between Euphorbias and Cacti, though.  Cacti are from the Western Hemisphere and Euphorbias are from the Eastern Hemisphere.  I haven’t determined whether the names are applied due to their location of origin, or if they are actually different, as well as being from different sources.

I have to admit that I am not a big fan of cacti-looking plants, but some of these would be hard to pass by if I saw one for sale.  I am a big fan of E. greenwayi and E. aeruginosa.  It looks like I’ll need to invest in a really good pair of gloves before I get either of those, though.

My own collection

I’m not sure that “collection” is the best word to use when describing my Euphorbia plants, seeing that I don’t have very many.  I think the word “collection” could be applied to my dream set of Euphorbias, though.  The more plants I see from this genus, the more I want to try growing.

I bought a Caribbean Copper plant (Euphorbia cotinifolia pictured earlier in the “Perennial Shrubs” section of this post) at the Bustani Plant Farm earlier this summer.  I had planned to put this plant in a pot with my Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’ for contrasting foliage size and color, but the plant I bought is a little more leggy than I had expected.  For now I have the plant growing solo in a pot.  Maybe with a little pruning I can encourage a more dense growth habit.

I have a couple of ‘Diamond Frost’ Euphorbias (pictured at the top of this post) planted in pots around our house.  They are one of the coolest container plants I have seen!

On Monday I posted about some new plants I received recently, including a variegated Pedilanthus tithymaloides, which is in the same family as the Euphorbia genus (Euphorbiaceae) and has the synonym of Euphorbia tithymaloides.

Of course, I also have a couple of Poinsettias, such as the white one pictured at the top of this post.

Others

There are tons of different Euphorbias, including some that grow into trees.  I have seen the Jamaican Poinsettia Tree in bloom at the OKC Myriad Gardens and it was pretty spectacular.

What Euphorbias have you grown?

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I have had three recent acquisitions of new plants from generous friends.  A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my trip to see Steve Lucas’s tropical atrium.  I mentioned that Steve was kind enough to take cuttings of several of his plants and shared them with me.  I have also received some plants (most of them Aroids) through the mail recently from some of my plant friends.  Plant friends are great!  I thought I would bundle all my new plants into one post.  Most of them are Aroids, but there are a couple of plants from outside the Aroid family.  Here’s all of them:

Steve has A LOT of Aroids, many of them Philodendrons.  This particular Philodendron (P. mayoi) was named after a noted botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in London - Dr. Simon Mayo.

Philodendron erubescens has really neat cataphylls that roll up into tight coils.  Many cataphylls are herbaceous, eventually turning papery and falling away.  These cataphylls are more persistent though.  The inflorescence of this Philodendron is a really beautiful red.  There are pictures on Steve’s website, if you’re interested.

This is likely a naturally-occurring hybrid from Brazil, commonly mislabelled as Philodendron Joepii (named after Joep Moonen).  There has been much confusion regarding this plant and it has yet to be given a name.  It retains the number until a registered cultivar name is assigned.

This is beautiful Philodendron with a wonderful leaf shape and a nice red mottling on the undersides of the leaves.  By the way, Steve told me that noted Aroid collected Roberto Burle-Marx only collected plants for their interesting leaf shapes and didn’t care what their names were.  I found that very interesting.  There are a number of plants named after him.

This Philodendron has a bright orange stem and very distinctive, long leaves.

This Philodendron has a really cool coloration.  The undersides of the leaves, which you can’t see from the picture, are red.

Steve has so many of these Alocasias spreading in his atrium every year that he has to rip them out and throw them away by the end of the summer season!  Can you believe that?  I helped him by removing one plant this Spring.

I have enjoyed pictures of this Aroid for quite a while.  I went in search of a plant and found a friend, as well! :)  A fellow plant enthusiast (Beth in Mississippi) agreed to send me a cutting.  Actually she sent three and included some more surprises in the box, as well!

Monsteras are wonderful Aroids, best known for their leaf fenestrations.  Beth sent me this large cutting of Philodendron ‘Pink Princess’ (below), which is a gorgeous hybrid.  Apparently she has several pots of this plant that each have 5 stems this size!

She also threw in two really cool non-Aroid plants - Synadenium grantii ‘rubra’ and a variegated Pedilanthus tithymaloides.

Beth told me that Synadenium roots very easily and quickly.  I have planted my two stems in moist Vermiculite, which has been the best rooting substance I have used in the past.  Beth also warned me to be careful with the sap of this plant, which will burn the skin worse than anything else she has ever encountered.  Vegetable oil can be used to remove the sap.

After a little research I found that Pedilanthus is a synonym for Euphorbia.  [I have a gigantic Euphorbia post prepared for Wednesday.  Stay tuned!]  This plants is sometimes called “Devil’s Backbone” or more favorably “Japanese Poinsettia.”  If I’m lucky, it will eventually produce small red or pink flowers at the top of the stems.

A fellow blogger noticed that I had a plant on my wish list that he had seen locally.  He bought the plant, sent it to me and I reimbursed him for his troubles.  This Philodendron has a different name everywhere you see it.  It is commonly called Philodendron glaucophyllum (or glaucaphyllum), though I am told the true species name is hastatum.  Some common names used are “Silver Metal Philodendron” or “Blue Philodendron.”  Regardless, it is a very cool plant, and this one is in great condition.

Mr. Subjunctive had a large Aglaonema that he didn’t mind sharing.  He split off a large division and sent it to me.  He also included another cool, little foliage plant in my box - Pellionia pulchra.  He didn’t provide it’s name right away, to allow me to track it down.  I think I had seen pictures of this plant, but it took me some time before I got to the source.  Along the way I thought it might be in the Cissus genus or possibly even a Begonia.  My wife noted that the leaves are asymmetrical, which is true of all Begonia leaves.  Eventually I found the identity in one of my plant books - Ortho’s Complete Guide to Houseplants.  It’s a Pellionia pulchra, which is in the same family (Urticaceae) as another genus of common foliage houseplants - Pilea.  Pileas are the plants commonly called “Aluminum,” “Watermelon” and “Friendship” plants.

That’s a lot of new additions!  Thanks, Steve, mr_subjunctive and Beth, for the wonderful plants.

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