Look what I won!

Last November, I joined the Sacramento Cactus and Succulent Society (SCSS) and I’ve attended each monthly meeting since. It’s a great group, with a tremendous amount of cumulative knowledge, and I come home from each get-together with renewed enthusiasm.

There is a raffle at each meeting, and I usually buy $5 worth of tickets. Plants are purchased specifically for the raffle, usually from a succulent nursery. At the February meeting, the plants came from The Great Petaluma Desert, a nursery specializing in caudiciforms and pachycauls, or “fat plants,” as they are so lovingly called by collectors.

As luck would have it, one of my tickets was drawn second and I got to pick between a dozen odd but endlessly intriguing plants. This is the one I chose:

Tentacle-like stems

As they often say about children or pets, it’s so ugly, only a mother could love it.

Actually, I don’t think it’s ugly at all. I love the tentacle-like stems and the corky skin.

Scaly skin

And if you look closely, you’ll see that it’s starting to leaf out.

Crinkly leaves

This oddball plant is a Euphorbia decaryi var. spirosticha, a Madagascar native which in the spring is covered with small crinkly leaves and eventually delicate yellow flowers. Take a look at this plant: It’s fully leafed out and in bloom.

Ugly or not is in the eye of the beholder. I’m happy to have it brought it home. And I can’t wait to see what I might win in the March raffle.