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Euphorbia milii v. breonii (L Nois) Ursch
et Leandri
Location: tropical Madagascar.
The flowers shown here, are each an individual inflorescence (cyathium)
consisting of a central female flower (floret) surrounded by male florets.
What appear to be petals are actually two highly coloured bracts which
serve to attract insects.
In the axils of the bracts are latent buds which develop to produce
two more cyathia, which in turn repeat the process forming clusters
(dichasia).
Another peculiarity is that some cyathia are male only and some others
only have female flowers. Some of these variations can be seen above.
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The unisexual state is known as dioecious, which refers to male and
female flowers on separate plants, but this is not the case here where
both the normal and unisexual flowers develop randomly.
This profusion of the large flowers on this particular variety of E.
milii make it a popular showy plant.
None of my plants have ever set seed during the 35 years I have been
growing them, this may be because they have all descended from the one
cutting I was originally given. Neither have I ever seen seed offered
for sale so the variety may be infertile.
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