Saturday, January 15, 2011

Euphorbia echinus


This succulent looks just like a cactus to me, but it isn't. It has those fat stems full of water and needle-like weapons to keep the herbivores away that are common to both the cactus and euphorb families. However the flowers are very different, so they are only distantly related even though they have such a similar form. This is called convergent evolution.

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