Euphorbia resinifera Berger
Eng.: Resin spurge. Spa.: Cardón resinoso. Fre.: Euphorbe a résine. Ara.: Zeggum. Tam.: Tikiut, tahut.
Monoecious subshrub, fleshy, cactiform, up to 1.2 m in height, hemispherical-spreading in shape, always with stems erect. It grows more in width than in height, reaching 3 m in diameter. Stems slightly or not ramose, bright green, tetragonal, exceptionally trigone, with ± concave faces and sharp angles. Stipular spines strong, rigid, 2-10 mm; arranged in pairs on the angles, born in an oval clearly defined bud. Leaves reduced to tiny tubercles at the angles, alongside the spines. Inflorescence pedunculate at the angles, between the pairs of spines; comprised of 3 completely yellow cyathia, the 2 lateral cyathia pedunculate and hermaphrodite, and the central cyathium —sessile and male— usually develops and falls off before the lateral ones. Fruit a capsule (4-5 × 6-7.5 mm) subglobose, with peduncle 4-8 mm, with clearly distinct cocci, compressed, angular and carinate, glabrous, smooth, first greenish and then yellowish. Each coccus carries 1 seed (2.7-3 × 2.5 × 2.5 mm), subglobose, with the surface dotted with small and thin plates of irregular contour, greyish or yellowish, without caruncula.
Flowering:
June to August.
Fruiting:
August to October.
Habitat:
Chalky terrains, on ± rocky soils, from 600-1,800 m above sea level, in semiarid to subhumid bioclimate, inframediterranean and thermomediterranean floors.
Distribution:
Endemic to SW Morocco, distributed along the lower and drier parts of the Mediterranean mountains, from the regions of Hauz, Rehamna and the south-western Middle Atlas up to the Jebel el Kest Massif (western Anti-Atlas). It seems absent from the drier, subdesert, Macaronesian influenced zones, where it is replaced by E. officinarum.
Conservation status:
A locally common species but of a restricted distribution. It is not considered threatened. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In the Livre Rouge de la flore vasculaire du Maroc (Fennane, 2021) it has been considered as Near Threatened (NT). Cactiform euphorbias are included in Annex II of CITES.