Here I'm introducing some of the rarest Euphorbias you hardly get the chance to see with you own eyes.

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Euphorbia banae W. Rauh 1993

This shrubby plants build thick tubers of up to 20 cm in length.

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Euphorbia mangelsdorfii W. Rauh 1998

Worldwide hardly ten plants of this species survived in cultivation. Like all members of the E. geroldii group within subgenus Lacanthis (E. milii relationship) it is spineless.

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Euphorbia retrospina W. Rauh & Gérold 2000

Note the backwards pointing spines to which the plant name refers.

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Euphorbia pervilleana H.E. Baillon 1861

Woody above soil, this plant produces a thick and succulent napiform root. Shown is the form that Rauh & Pétignat described as E. spinicapsula in 1993. The plant's name (now synonym) refers to its very spiny seed capsules that, as an exception among Euphorbias, don't explode.

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Euphorbia spec. aff. leuconeura

The E. leuconeura that we know in cultivation was never found in the wild. Only recently on a smaller island in the neighbourhood of Madagascar this new plant was dicovered. It deviates from the usual E. leuconeura by its leaf shape and the much denser stipular thorns.

All photos were taken in the collection of Wilbert Hetterscheid in Holland. Wilbert is an Amorphophallus guru but also knows how to grow really difficult euphorbs.

Frank

www.euphorbia.de