Euphorbia hamata red fruit wrinkled

    Euphorbia hamata red fruit wrinkled
    Author: Ivan Lätti
    Photographer: Thabo Maphisa

    The Euphorbia hamata fruit turns red and wrinkly as it ripens. The tightening skin accentuates a three-segmented fruit structure. Another fruit (green) also shown in this Album has six equal segments. The secondary lines are probably only subdued on this fruit.

    The departing style with curled stigma branches is not quite gone but already redundant, like the crown slipping off the head of a dead queen. (Kings are found on other bushes probably nearby, the species being dioecious.)

    Leaves and bracts are quite similar in the picture, the bracts having broader bases and paler colouring than the leaves that do not turn cream. Both have tinges of pinkish red though, increasing with age or stress. The bookies may favour the leaves to drop before the bracts here?

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