May at the Mediterranean Garden and the Western Walks of the SNFCC is wonderfully loud and has a bright lemon-green color!
The flowers of the Wulfen Mediterranean Spurge, also known as Tithymalo, create large yellow inflorescences, which at the end of Spring, release their seeds with a very characteristic sound. The scientific name of the plant is Euphorbia Characias ssp wulfenii. It belongs to Euphorbiaceae the family and it is a perennial, toad-shrub species of Euphorbia, widespread throughout the Mediterranean basin, where it grows in stony and rocky places, as its name reveals (ruler = rock). It grows in the form of rectangular vaulted clusters up to 1 meter high and 80 cm wide, which consist of strongly linear stems, where the dense foliage gets a spiral shape. It consists of small, narrow lanceolate leaves with a light green-blue color.
Its spectacular, extremely rich flowering takes place from February to June, with the massively emerging inflorescences, called “kyathia”, which is the ancient Greek word for the cup..
It is a relatively fast-growing plant, very hard, versatile, and easy to grow. It prefers sunny positions, but with good drainage. It is very resistant to high as well as low temperatures like - 15 ° C. It reproduces by seed and cuttings, often self-sowing in favorable positions. It is attractive to pollinating insects, such as bees and butterflies.
In Greece, we come across 40 of the total 1600 species of Euphorbia worldwide, which we call Galatsides, due to the milky juice that comes out of the trunk of the plant when cut. Although its juice is toxic and can cause itching when in contact with the human skin, the plant is the "medicinal Euphorbia" of the ancients known for its healing properties. Dioskouridis even refers to it as "Tithymallos the Harakias", emphasizing its healing, anti-asthmatic, and antipyretic effects.
