Identification: Plant identification (species)

Hopefully someone can help me out here, i have had this plant for about 3-4 years and had to cut cut it back and propagate it a few times since when it grows it really grows fast, you can almost watch it. However i have never seen a flower.

Back then i got it from my retiring Archaeology Professor, who told me he had braught it back from Africa, where it grew sprawling along the ground and that the locals weave them into their fences.

As such it always grows a single long vine that grows up until it topples over. I have not noticed any indications that it would attach itself or grab on to climb. From there it just continues trying to grow up, supporting it helps for a while but then the tip eventually reaches past the window frame and it had to be looped down, to grow up again. This happens continuously, which is why i had to cut it back. When i did, only one node would activate, rarely 2. The cuttings propagate easily in some dirt after having dried and calloused over properly.

If it wasn't so annoying in its growth habit i would absolutely love to have this plant climbing all over or hanging down from a basket. ...

The stem is slightly fuzzy and around 7,5mm thick, very tought to cut. It always has two tiny leaves on each node that never unfurl, covering the 2 lateral growthpoints like scales that then dry out fairly quickly. The lateral growthpoints on each node always seem to alternate by about 90° from the ones on the next node along the central axis. I am not sure if the node can be propagated and reactivated if all 3 growthpoints including the tip have been exausted previously. It does not seem to branch spontaniously but interruptions in the central growth cause another lateral growthpoint to activate into a new shoot.

It probably belongs to the Euphorbia family, it produces a white milky sap if injured. If you have any ideas as to the species or where i could best seach for it, whether it be in a different forum or in a picture-database by a botanist, i would be grateful.

Motherplant together with Chamaedorea elegans, i will be seperating them again and put all the cuttings into one pot with the motherplant:


Cuttings, smaller one about 40cm long, you can see where it pointed down after toppling and turned to grow up again:

details:




Thx,
Wolfram.

 

It looks like Euphorbia tirucalli, Pencil tree.

 

It does but that is not it., It grows completly differently.

 

Well, do you have a photo showing how it grows?
How much light does it get?

 

Sadly no, perhaps i could find some old pictures from when i had it circling my windowframe, east facing windows in this case. It got full east exposure and some midday sun.

As i said it grows up, but never develops a trunk and never branches (the cutting in the picture activated both growth-points simultaniously when i last propagated and repotted it) , so usually it just gets longer and longer. I have seen some similar species in botanical gardens that climb and screw around other plants to do so, but mine has never done anything like it, which together with the story lead me to believe it is a crawling vine.

It could possibly be a type of Cynanchum viminale, but then again it does not seem to branch on its own, nor does it keep upright on its own.

 

Yep the more i look at it the more i think that was it.

Cynanchum viminale

Cynanchum viminale (L.) L. | Plants of the World Online | Kew Science

apparently it occurs over a vast range and has multible different subspecies, all of which are probably only recognisable by the flowers.

Thx again.

 

Thanks for replying, Wolfram. Interesting that Cynanchum, in the Apocynaceae family, has milky sap, as do plants in the Euphorbiaceae family, and that a synonym given is Euphorbia viminalis.
I note that the page at your link mentions "smooth cylindrical green photosynthetic stems", whereas your description is "stem is slightly fuzzy", but otherwise, that seems like a good match.
You'll have to get yours to flower.

 

Yea the younger shoots tend to be fuzzy but it wears off and older stems are smooth, a detail i missed.

They do resemble Euphorbia tirucalli a lot, and feel almost the same to the touch.

i do plan to let it grow this time, not sure if i will manage to get it to flower, it just always seems to get in the way eventually.