deformity or biological wonder?

There are some things I just don’t get. Waffles topped with fried chicken and syrup, for one thing. Crested succulents, another.

A trip to a cactus show or nursery site for succulents will likely turn up a section devoted to plants with crested (or “cristate”) and monstrose growths. Generally I find that the shapes of plants are interesting enough, and I usually don’t go gaga over some genetic oddball.

crested-euphorbia-lambii

But the oddball cresting behavior found its way to the garden anyway. This is a young Euphorbia lambii in the back yard, one of four I have growing in pots.

crested-euphorbia-lambii-closeup

Here’s a closeup…

crested-euphorbia-lambii-from-above

And here’s a view from the top…

normal-euphorbia-lambii

The typical habit for this plant is to produce branches that are distributed around its growing tip, something that you can see in this normal lambii nearby. With the crested mutation, the apical meristem, the point where new growth emerges, has changed from a point to a line. So instead of a cylindrical stem with branches all around, you get a stem that grows flat, like a cobra’s hood, with new growths distributed along that line.

From what research I’ve done it isn’t apparent what causes this particular mutation. The genus Euphorbia, however, is one of those where you could encounter it fairly commonly. (If there’s anything in the plant’s environment that caused it, I wonder if might be drought stress. Of the four plants, this one received the least amount of water. A couple times it came close to defoliating. All the others are growing normally.)

I’ll admit that the crested growth interesting. Maybe I’ll learn to love it. But I’m not there yet…

3 thoughts on “deformity or biological wonder?”

  1. That crest IS extremely interesting. It will certainly start conversations. The euphorbias are so cool all by themselves then to get a mutation is way cool.

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