information about Euphorbia tirucalli [external moprphology ]?

Question

it is a phylloclade family euphorbiaceae

Answer 1

Euphorbia tirucalli, pencil tree, or milk bush is a shrub that grows in semi-arid tropical climates.

Milk bush produces a poisonous latex which can, with little effort, be converted to the equivalent of gasoline. This led chemist Melvin Calvin to propose the exploitation of milk bush for producing oil.

This usage is particularly appealing because of the ability of milk bush to grow on land that is not suitable for most other crops. Calvin estimated that 10 to 50 barrels of oil per acre was achievable.

Milk bush also has uses in traditional medicine in many cultures. It has been used to treat cancers, excrescences, tumors, and warts in such diverse places as Brazil, India, Indonesia, Malabar and Malaysia. It has also been used as an application for asthma, cough, earache, neuralgia, rheumatism, toothache, and warts in India. There is some interest in milk bush as a cancer treatment.

In the 1980s the Brazilian national petroleum company - Petrobras - began experiments based on the ideas that Calvin put forth.

The plant is a shrub and has dark green cylindrical stem.

The leaves are extremely reduce or scale like or absent.

The stem is , therefore, a phylloclade and carries on photosynthesis.

Answer 2

Cammon English name is pencil tree.
Pencil tree grows with single or multiple trunks which support a tangle of light green, pencil thick, succulent branches with little sign of a leaf. Pencil tree can reach a height of 20-30' with a 6-10' spread. The main trunk and branches are woody and brownish, but the younger branches are green and cylindrical, looking like so many pencils. The leaves are tiny and are shed early. What is usually called the flower is really a group of petal-like bracts (modified leaves). The true flowers, which are centered within the bracts, are inconspicuous.