Euphorbia polygona v. hebdomadalis

One of my  Dutch friends, Wim Alsemgeest, regularly organises trips trips to South Africa for people interested in succulents. When I first looked up his website (www.agaves.nl) a couple of years ago, I was surprised to find a picture there captioned “This is how Euphorbia horrida grows in the Seweweekspoort” (for non-South-African readers: a poort is a passage through the mountains). The picture, taken in November 2006,  shows a group of 8 columns on a very steep slope.
Because of the slope, it seemed impossible to get near to the plants and therefore  I tried to find other plants, hopefully at a more accessible spot.
Although I drove through the poort dozens of times since, it took me a few years before I was successful. This may seem strange, because the plants sometimes grow relatively near to the road and are  often quite substantial, but they are very difficult to see unless the light and the angle of view are just right (I’m trying to protect my reputation as a plant hunter here, as you will no doubt understand).
The plants that I spotted first were just as inaccessible as the one I had seen in  the picture, so the satisfaction of finding them was mixed with the disappointment of not being able to get a good shot of  them. On a later trip with two friends from Calitzdorp, we found more specimens, this time on the other side of the road, but as this also was a rather steep slope, I did not even try to get up there. 
In the beginning of this year I was visited by two Belgian plant friends, who told me about a new species of Euphorbia that had been found in the Seweweekspoort not long before. After some discussion it dawned upon me that perhaps we were taking about the same plant that had eluded me for such a long time and we decided to visit the poort once more to try and see what was what.  We drove to the place where the so called Euphorbia horrida grew and I was appointed as volunteer to climb the same slope that up to now had seemed too steep to me.
After struggling up for a while through rather dense vegetation, I decided to take a little rest and ponder the meaning of the expression “an uphill battle”.  I took off my heavy photo rucksack, put it in a safe place and sat down on a sturdy rock. When I had gathered enough courage to continue, I turned round to get my equipment and found out that I had been almost sitting on a small specimen of the elusive Euphorbia (picture 1).

_DSC8400res

_DSC8399res
Another small plant growing nearby

_DSC8403res
A few meters higher up, hiding behind a big rock and invisible from the road

After taking some more pictures, I came to the conclusion that the plants I had seen from the road were too high up and did not promise any better pictures.

One question had not been answered yet. What was this “new species of Euphorbia” that was supposed to grow in the area?  For some reason I had missed an observation published  on iSpot on New Year’s Day this year. The moment I  came across this publication, it became clear that it discussed the same taxon that I refer to in this post. Rather than repeating all the information given there I give you the link to it (www.ispot.org.za/node/176721).
Whether or not these plants really deserve a varietal name I do not know, but they are certainly beautiful as well as interesting.

Two interesting Euphorbias from the southern Great Karoo. Part 2: The start of a hybrid swarm?

Because this area harbours a variety of interesting succulents, we had high expectations of what we might come across. Nevertheless, the rest of the trip was rather boring. That is, till the moment George pointed out a big clump of what we both thought was Euphorbia stellispina, in a field next to the road. Finding that species in itself, would have been nice enough, but when we walked up to the plant, we discovered that it was much more special: about all the plant’s features were perfectly in between those of E. stellispina and E. heptagona.  The result was spectacular.

euphstelXenopla 2013-02-24 DSC8447res

euphstelXenopla 2013-02-24 DSC8446res
Two pictures of the purported hybrid

When we searched the immediate surroundings, we found plants of both these species, which strengthened the idea that our plant was a hybrid between the two.

euphstel 8321#2012-11-03_lznres
E. stellispina

euphheptDSC_3579_lznres
E. heptagona

To make the find even more exciting, after some looking around we came across another hybrid between the same parents.

euphstelXenopla 2013-02-24 DSC8448res(001)
More interesting than beautiful

Here the results of the mix are totally different and far less appealing. On the other hand it is exciting to witness what may be the beginning of a hybrid swarm and it would be interesting to follow the population’s behaviour over some time.