The Pencil Cactus is a beautiful succulent plant belonging to the Euphorbia family. The Botanical name is Euphorbia tirucalli. Its also known as aveloz, firestick plant, Indian tree spurge, naked lady, pencil tree and so on.
It is a beautiful ornamental houseplant and gives an interesting look because the stems are slender and look like branching pencils with no obvious leaves. Actually tiny leaves appear initially and then fall off.
Pencil Cactus is actually not a cactus. Cactus is a misnomer and its actually a succulent plant. If you want to learn basic of succulents and cacti, I have a separate playlist on succulents and cacti.
It is also called as Milk-bush because of the milky sap or the juice it secretes when its cut or damaged. So, Be careful while handling this plant, because this sap is toxic and can sometimes cause anaphylactic reactions – that means acute allergic reactions.
Care Tips of pencil cactus plant: Actually pencil cactus needs very little care.
- It’s a succulent plant and needs very little water like once a week in summer and only if the top 1 – 2 inches of soil is completely dry. In winter , that’s in its dormant period, it hardly needs any watering.
- The soil must be a well draining soil or you can also use a succulent and cactus potting mix. You can check out one such best formula from my videos linked in description. The container must have lot of drainage holes to drain out excess moisture. Also Make sure you change the potting mix to a well draining succulent mix once you bring home this plant from nursery.
- Sunlight: This needs full sunlight and warmer temperatures for best growth.
- Fertilizer: It’s a succulent and needs very little feeding. You can add only about 10 percent compost in potting mix while repotting or add some compost on top soil once in 3 to 6 months and its optional.
Propagation of pencil cactus:
Pencil
cactus is very easy to propagate with cuttings. Actually this plant you are
seeing here is grown from a cutting from this huge mother plant. Just insert a
cutting into a clean sandy soil or cocopeat and its roots very easily in about
2 to 3 weeks even without using any rooting hormone. You can optionally use a rooting hormone if
you have.
But remember to allow the stem cutting to dry and form callous to seal the end
so that fungus or bacterial attack is sealed off. This happens when you
leave the cutting to dry in shade for 1 or 2 days, before inserting into soil. This is very important basic
step for growing any succulent from cutting. For
beginners, Callous is something like a scab which forms on the wound very much
similar to human wound healing. This seals off the rest of the stem from
infection and helps prevent rot.
After you insert the cutting, leave it in shade or indirect light for about a 1 to 2 months or until good new growth or shooting commences.
Well, The name itself sounds so interesting – The Mother of Millions and the Mother of Thousands. These are two different succulent plants and both belong to the same Crassulaceae family and genus Kalanchoe. They are actually considered as Toxic weeds by many, but they are really beautiful ornamental plants if grown with caution, like keeping them away from pets and children. All parts of these plants are poisonous and contain a very toxic steroid known as daigremontianin.
The Botanical name of Mother of Thousands is Bryophyllum or kalanchoe daigremontianum, also called alligator plant, or Mexican hat plant. By seeing this clip, You can easily understand why its called Alligator plant and Mexican hat plant. Sometime its also known as devil’s backbone, though another plant called pedilanthus or the zig zag plant is known as devils backbone.
Now, the mother of millions which is botanically Bryophyllum or kalanchoe tubiflorum. Also known as chandelier plant.
The basic difference between these two is:
- The Shape of their leaves. Mother of Thousands has broad, tear-shaped leaves. These leaves always grow in pairs, each leaf on opposite sides of the stem. If you closely look at the edges of the leaves, you’ll see they have little ridges. That is where their baby plants called as plantlets or buds develop. These plantlets, or buds, grow all along the edge of the leaf. A happy, healthy leaf will have full of babies around its margin. Leaves also rush to grow babies if they are damaged or think they’re about to die.
These plantlets are literally miniature plants. They are already growing and performing photosynthesis, while still attached to their mother. Most even produce roots in addition to their leaves like the one you see in this clip. They eventually fall on the ground and grow as independent plants by this natural process. That’s a huge advantage for these plants, because regular plants have to grow or propagate from seeds by natures process!
- Mother of Millions, on the other hand, has very narrow leaves. The plantlets on these leaves only grow at the end of the leaf, near the tip. Usually there are between 2-4 babies on each leaf. Am not sure though more plantlets per leaf are produced by mother of thousands, and why this plant is called mother of millions. If you know this answer, please let us know by commenting below the video. I think may be, the number of stalks arising from the same plant are more in number than the mother of thousands.
Care tips and propagation techniques, which are common for both these plants:
They are easy to grow succulents, and actually they are very much loved by beginners, because they do not require much care. The care is just like any other succulent plant.
- Watering: They need to be less frequently watered, only if the soil is dry.
- Soil: They grown in any type of soil, but do very well in any well draining soil with some compost to nourish.
- Sunlight: They prefer indirect bright light and do not tolerate direct sunlight.
- Fertilizers: Not actually needed. But once a month feeding with liquid water soluble NPK or compost tea is good for home gardening level.
Propagation: As I have discussed earlier, It is able to propagate vegetatively from miniature plantlets that develop on its leaf margins. This is unique method of propagation of this plant. But this plant also develops flowers and can be propagated via seeds.
Now One Simple hack for this plant: Actually if the plantlets are seen on this plant, it indicates that the plant is healthy and you can separate these plantlets carefully, preferably if roots have developed and then just place them in soil and each plantlet will develop into a new plant. And if there are no plantlets, you can still propagate multiple plants by cutting a mature leaf and half burying it in the soil. Actually in nature, this plant sheds its leaf not able to bear its weight and this develops plantlets and the propagation proceeds.
So, there we have it folks, that was about these interesting succulent plants.