Euphorbia squamigera Loisel
E. rupicola Boiss., E. bivonae var. tangerina Pau
Eng.: Spurge. Spa.: Lechetrezna, tabaiba. Fre.: Euphorbe squameuse. Ara.: Lezara.
Monoecious shrub, up to 1.50 m in height. Highly ramose from the base, with erect slightly divided branches. Bark ashen-brown in older stems and branches, with numerous scars left by fallen leaves. Young branches brown to dark green. Leaves (25-60 × 5-25 mm) concentrated in the upper half of the branches, usually lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, sessile or subsessile, usually with entire margin and sometimes slightly undulated, acute, with a small mucro at the tip, glabrous. Pleiochasium with 5-7 rays, 30-80 mm, bifurcated 2-3 times, longer than the pleiochasial bracts; the latter are elliptical to suborbicular or subrhomboid, green. Dichasial bracts orbicular to rhomboid, yellowish, free. Male and female flowers appear together in a cyathium. Cyathia 2-3 mm, shortly pedunculate, glabrous, with yellow or reddish nectaries that are not appendiculate. Fruit a subglobose capsule (3.5-5.5 × 4-5.5) somewhat depressed, glabrous or villous, pedicel 3-5 mm, with grooves between cocci only slightly marked. Cocci finely verrucose or almost smooth. Each coccus carries 1 seed (2.5-3.5 × 1.8-3 mm), ovoid, slightly compressed, surface smooth, light brown or reddish brown, sometimes slightly pink, carunculate.
Flowering:
May to June.
Fruiting:
May to August.
Habitat:
Calcareous and dolomitic rocky outcrops in coastal and inland regions, from sea level up to 2,100 m, in dry to humid bioclimate.
Distribution:
Ibero-Mauritanian. In North Africa it is a relatively common species in the mediterranean limestone mountains of Morocco, with its southernmost limit in Jebel el Kest (western Anti-Atlas). In Algeria it is distributed throughout the western Tellian Atlas. In Tunisia it is rare, only growing in Cap Bon. In also grows in NE Libya, in littoral and sublittoral mountains close to Bayda (Cyrenaica).
Observations:
Sometimes this species has been confused with other 2 very similar, not shrubby, but with stems sometimes a little lignified at the base: E. paniculata Desf. and E. clementei Boiss. Both with erect stems, little ramified, up to 1(1.5) m tall and verrucose cocci. Among them they differ because the first has 2-4 pleocasial rays and the second has 5-7 rays. Widely distributed by the Mediterranean parts of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
Conservation status:
Relatively common species with a wide Distribution. They are not considered threatened. Currently, they have not been assessed at a global level on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.