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Euphorbia horrida cristate
Origin: Seed from New Zealand.
I purchased a packet of 50 Euphorbia horrida seeds in December 1982.
They were sown in January 1983 in my heated propagator, 30 geminated
over the next 4 months. The seedlings all looked very similar at first,
but by the end of the year some slight differences in colour, form and
size began to show.
After two years went by I began to realise I had some real gems. Some
plants were similar to the striata form of 'horrida' but globular and
freely branching at the base others had vivid red thorns and at 3 cm
diameter, a few flowers were
already appearing.
As time went by there was a horrida collection of very attractive clumping
forms most having masses of flowers in the Spring.
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It took 5 years before I discovered that two of the plants were showing
signs of developing a crest. These two specimens were then in 5 inch
(12 cm) pots and growing vigorously.
During these early years I successful crossed different forms of the
originals resulting in more variants and at one time had over 100 plants
none of which were identical. However no more cristate forms appeared.
Neither of the two cristate plants have ever flowered, so I had to propagate
them by none cristate offsets cuttings. Following rooting, it took a
long time before eventually they showed signs of a crest.
The biggest original plant got too big (35 cm pot), so I sold it and
now the second plant has nearly filled another 35 cm pot.
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