Here's a plant that delivers on color. It's the ever cheerful garden croton or Codiaeum variegatum. It's in the Euphorbiaceae family, which are also know as spurges, or akoko in Hawaiian. One of the most recognizable spurges is poinsettia. If you follow the origin of the word spurge back to the Middle English, you'll see it derives from expurge, "to clean out," which makes sense since the bitter and milky sap of spurges may be used medicinally as laxatives, though in small quantity, as they are toxic. One should exercise care not to get it on the skin or clothing. The are several hundred cultivars of garden croton, and though they vary widely in leaf shape, texture, and patterning, they are somehow recognizable as crotons. They like it warm and are found throughout tropical and subtropical climes. When it comes to care, crotons are like Goldilocks: sunny but not too sunny, moist, but not too moist - you get the picture. Though I have never noticed mine flowering, I will be paying closer attention to the long racemes, with white male and yellow female flowers on separate inflorescences. | |
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October 2014
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