I am confused about the species Euphorbia heterophylla and Poinsettia cyathophora. I have seen a number of websites that list them as synonyms of each other, implying that they are in fact the same species. But I have seen other websites that discuss them as though they were different species. Can anyone clear this up for me. I recently saw a species in Bermuda that was one or the other of these species, and I also saw one at the LA Arboretum that was not signed.
They seem to be two different species, though a number of the texts do mention some confusion surrounding the names (note, though, that Euphorbia cyathophora seems to be the name in use for that species now) USDA has a page for each species: http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=EUHE4 http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=EUCY MissouriPlants makes a note of the confusion at the end of its page on "Poinsettia cyathophora" Flora of Thailand Euphorbiaceae separates the two with descriptions and synonyms. Lastly, here's a search for [GOOGLE]A Synopsis of Poinsettia[/GOOGLE] which is the title of a paper by Dressler who tabulates the differences - don't know if any of these are freely available, though.
