Euphorbia guentheri

Euphorbia guentheri, also called sausage spurge, is a species of flowering plant in the family Euphorbiaceae native to eastern Africa. Euphorbia guentheri is more low-growing, sprawling, and spiny, whereas Euphorbia ritchiei and Euphorbia succulenta are more upright, less spiny, and sometimes more colorful in its bracts.

It is a succulent subshrub characterized by long, numerous, unbranched, fleshy, cylindrical stems adorned with prominent, spine-tipped tubercles. New stems emerge from the base as the plant grows. The stems may be erect, creeping, pendent, or unbranched, reaching up to 3 feet (90 cm) in length and about 0.4 inches (1 cm) in diameter. Stems are tessellated with prominent, somewhat recurved, cone-shaped tubercles measuring up to 7 × 7 mm, from which the leaves emerge. Each tubercle bears 1–3 small, stout, glabrous prickles clustered at the apex near the base of the leaf or leaf scar, up to 2 mm long; the central spine is deflexed, with smaller lateral spines.^[1]

Leaves are obovate, green, and grow from the tubercles, measuring up to 3.2 inches (8 cm) long and 0.7 inches (1.8 cm) wide. The leaves are broad to linear-lanceolate, acute, entire, fleshy, with slightly crisped margins, deciduous, and glabrous. It features a thick, rootstock that can be productively raised.^[1]

The plant produces small flowers in spring, approximately 5 mm long and 4 mm across, featuring red glands surrounded by greenish-white bracts with subtle pink to purple tinges. The flowers arise in the axils of the tubercles; peduncles 4–6 mm long, each bearing 1–2 cyathia. Bract-cup oblique, 6 mm long, 5 mm wide, shortly and sharply 2-lobed at the apex, open in the front with margins not meeting, 2-keeled along the back, glabrous, greenish-white with pink or purple hues, with acute lobes. The cyathia are barrel-shaped, 2 mm in diameter.^[1]

The fruit is a capsule, acutely 3-lobed, about 5 × 5 mm, with 3–3.8 mm long, 1.5 mm wide oblong seeds and two tight, fleshy, serrated wings along each angle; pedicel 5 mm.^[1]

It is native to southeast Kenya in the Teita District, where it is found growing in grass in open scrubland at elevations ranging from 2,950 to 3,280 feet (900 to 1,000 m).^[1] A moderately fast grower, it reaches maturity in about 3-5 years.^[1] It is also found in desert or dry shrubland biome.^[2]