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.
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.
Here’s a closeup…
And here’s a view from the top…
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…
June 22 2009 05:26 am | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: crested succulents • cristation • Euphorbia lambii • mutations
Greg on 24 Jun 2009 at 5:36 pm #
Hmmm. That’s a little unusual, eh?
tina on 25 Jun 2009 at 6:39 am #
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.
[ Lost in the Landscape ] » mutant primrose on 12 May 2011 at 6:34 am #
[…] on one of the plants. I’ve noticed this crested growth pattern in the garden a few times, most recently on a euphorbia. But this is the first time I’ve noticed it on a primrose–or any other local native plant for […]