Euphorbia obesa.

Hi Origami master,

I am new to cacti and succulents, but the picture intrigued me. Initially I thought it was from the genus astrophytum because there were no spines, but I came across Euphorbia obesa which had similar markings and structure.

Euphorbia's a pretty interesting genus...never thought a euphorbia like E. obesa could be round! :).

The link below has two pictures of E. obesa, just scroll down to the middle.

As I've mentioned before I am very new to cacti and succulent, perhaps someone else could verify (or correct) and share their expertise with us :)

Eliz

Here is a link that might be useful: Euphorbia obesa

I third the id, definitely Euphorbia obesa, and a nice specimen at that.

Christopher

It is, too.

You want to hear something strange? We sold many E.o.s at the SDCSS monthly plant sales to one particular lady, who was, how shall I put it, peculiar herself...it was said she had a backyard full of nothing but E.o. in the ground - imagine that.

There is nothing wrong with your plant. Euphorbia don't actually have flowers like cacti. Their flowers are properly called cyathia. Some Euphorbia species have male and female plants. Your happens to be a male like this one:
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The female flower is shown on this plant:
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Here they are together:
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Brad

That last photo - you should charge admission on that one.

There are two forms or species of this plant, the one in the picture is a male plant, and how do I know this, it has pollen to fertilize a female if any if available, the female flowers will have no pollen, but three spokes and three seeds, or fruitwill form if fertilized. When ripe they will pop open and come up in other pots, cute when they are little ones. Norma

Their flowers are properly called flowers. It's their inflorescences (flower heads) that are called cyathia.

It's like in the Compositae (daisy family) where the flower heads hold lot of individual flowers.

I'm being pendantic, but it's an important distinction :)

-R

thank you everyone for your input. I didn't see any white latex when I picked off the fake flower the grower had glued on - i picked off a small chunk of the plant along with the glue. I was thinking it was a class B mutation in a floral organ identity genes (by the ABC scheme) but it's evident that's just the way the flowers are. thanks again everyone!