When we moved into our house in August we "inherited" a well-established garden. This plant was already quite big, it stands about five ft now. We have a gardener who comes a couple times a week to help with heavy work, he didn't know the name but was advising us to have it removed because the sap (is that the proper term?) could be hazardous to our kids if they ingested it. You can bend the plant far over and it bounces back, in the beginning I thought it was some kind of rubber/fake plant. Anyway, the pics. Here's one of the entire plant, with a soccer ball for scale: The next two are close-ups of the leaves, such as they are. The leaves never get any bigger, they just fall off. I have never seen anything bud- or flower-like, we've been living here now about seven months. Any ideas? Kate
it's probably euphorbia tirucalli aka pencil cactus. euphorbias usually have a white sap that is irritating to the skin and could be poisonous if ingested.
It would be too bad if you had to destroy your plant (succulent) Maybe a friend of neighbor would take it off your hands for you. This Euphorbia makes a great houseplant if you can give them enough light.
Thanks for the replies, I did a Google search on the name you gave, Joclyn, and saw some pics that look identical to mine. I don't think I'll have it removed. My kids are 10, 6 and 3, but they have never been the type to put things in their mouths like that, and they have had zero interest in this plant, they never go near it. I'm discovering, as I settle in, that we may have other "dangerous" plants (like oleander) that are in more traffic-heavy areas, I'm just not sure what the actual danger really is. I mean, what is the probability.. I will say that I don't think anyone would want this plant, so if I don't keep it it will likely go to the dumpster. Kate
Just an observation.... Your succulent would probably benefit from more brighter light and some direct sun.
I don't know about your personal feelings on the Euphorbia, Kate, but I used to use that species as a fence-substitute. Anyone who tried to go through it ended up with really hideous blisters wherever the sap touched them - needless to say it was quite a good repellant fence. I wore industrial rubber gloves to prune these puppies to avoid a similar fate. That said, the plant's not all that fragile, and given strong, direct sunlight like you have in the UAE should help it beef up a bit. There probably isn't any danger to your kids so long as they don't run smack into it and break the branches. As for the oleander, as long as they don't eat it, it's really not all that dangerous.
Well, now, that's an interesting thought. We have a concrete wall around our property (you can see the inside of it in the pic); the prior tenant had planted a cactus variety around the outside perimeter, we assume to discourage people from trying to climb over (although it is also interesting to look at). Maybe I could relocate this plant to outside the wall instead of inside -- it would get more light and be virtually inaccessible by anyone except if they were right up on our wall. Do you know how regular the watering needs to be? The cactus out there already only gets water when it rains, which, obviously, isn't very often. We generally get substantial rain once, maybe twice a year. (This year we had considerable rain for about three weeks straight in January.) That's something to think about...
When I was growing E. tirucalli, I was living in a tropical dry forest (semi-desert but with scrubby acacia and eucalypts) and they formed part of a xeriscaping plan. That is, I never watered them at all. It rained lightly about once a month, and substatially for two months. That's it. And they flourished. The only exception to my no-water rule was after a dust storm, when I hosed them off to remove the dust - it was thick enough to interfere with the photosynthesis. You can absolutely relocate it; wear heavy rubber gloves and long sleeves/long pants for the job, and avoid getting sapped. If you do get sapped, use rubbing alcohol to get it off; it's NOT water soluble sap, and water will only spread the irritation. If, in the transplant process, any branches fall off, wait a couple of days for them to heal over, then plant them out. Easy multiplication! Good luck - I miss my desert garden.
How would it be if I sort of divided up the plant.. like cut off the major branches from the central stem.. left them to heal over, then planted the segments around the wall perimeter? I was thinking that might be easier to do, or not? We have maybe twenty or so "prickly pear" type cactus around the wall perimeter; I was considering transplanting in between those, maybe planting stems would be easier than trying to dig out a root ball and plant that? Does it even have much of a root ball? Kate
you can definitely plant pieces of the stems - after the cuts have healed over!! that would be infinitely easier than trying to get the whole thing up!
It's funny how the sap might irritate some people and not others. When taking cuttings of this plant, I didn't even know the sap could be irritating and got quite a bit of the sap on my skin "hands" and "arms" without any problems, it was about as irritaing as water:>) To be on the safe side though, do wear protection on your hands and over your eyes when taking cuttings and always wash your hands after handling.
Yes, well, the hedge needed to be maintained. But I wonder if we aren't talking about different pencil trees. Mine looked like the one in the picture below, which is substantially chubbier about the leaves than filfilksq's. She might not have to worry after all.... I should mention that I had one that was skinny as well, and it never caused me any irritation. The bulky one, though, I wouldn't touch it if it wasn't absolutely necessary. Not sure about the root ball - I've never tried to take a whole plant out of the ground before.
When I said I would be hesitant of handling a plant that did that, I meant mine:) The plant is a Euphorpia tirucalli, but it's not as dense as the one in the picture, it has always been an indoor plant. Maybe being thicker with much more sap, it can be more lethal to the skin, including mine! Mine being a skinner plant seems to be more kind. Knock on wood!
That would make sense; the fat ones of mine were really really oozy. But the skinny one hardly bled at all.
