Thank you to tonrulkens@Flickr (aka Ton Rulkens) of Mozambique for sharing today's photograph via the Botany Photo of the Day Flickr Pool (original image). It's great to see some contributions from Africa! And, I suppose if I was a bit better planner, this photograph would have appeared on St. Patrick's Day.

Jatropha scaposa is an endemic species of Mozambique. This species was only scientifically described and published in 1991, though specimens had been collected decades earlier in the 20th century. It is a native to the coastal plains, where it grows in sandy soils.

Here are a set of links for additional reading:

• Jatropha scaposa via Flora of Mozambique
• Jatropha scaposa via Aluka
• Mozambique's Red List of Threatened and Extinct Plant Species (PDF)

Arthur K. sent along an email suggesting that I inform you that Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is now doing a Plant of the Day (bottom left corner of that page). It's not done in a weblog format, but you can subscribe to it via widgets / RSS feeds. More botany in each day is a good thing!

On a technical note: I know that some of you have been experiencing problems with email notifications. Emails are sent out in batches so that the server isn't overloaded, but we think that's what might be occurring. We've made a few tweaks so that fewer emails are sent out in each batch (half as many) but increased the frequency of send-outs (50% more often). Hopefully, this resolves the issue in the short-term. Long-term, it looks like we'll be needing to invest in a new server or figure out a different way to handle the notification emails.