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Euphorbia antisyphilitica
Candelilla is a shrub of the spurge family with clustered, leafless, wax-coated stems that cope well with arid conditions. It is grown mainly as a drought-tolerant landscape plant or container specimen in dry climates, and the key to success is sharp drainage and minimal watering once established.
Euphorbia antisyphilitica is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family Euphorbiaceae. It is native to the Trans-Pecos of Texas and southern New Mexico in the United States as well as Chihuahua, Coahuila, Hidalgo, and Querétaro in Mexico. Common names include candelilla and wax plant, but the latter is more often applied to members of the unrelated genus Hoya. It is shrubby and has densely clustered, erect, essentially leafless stems that are covered in wax to prevent transpiration.
Candelilla is gaining in popularity as a landscape plant in parts of the arid US southwest. It is popular for the following reasons:
Once established, it needs little water other than rainfall in cities such as Phoenix or Tucson, making it a good roadway median planting.
When Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini first described E. antisyphilitica he registered a presumed alternative medicinal use of the plant for the treatment of syphilis (a sexually transmitted infection), but there is no available documentation to sustain the usage of candelilla for that purpose in indigenous communities that inhabited the territories where distribution is described. Commercial harvesting of candelilla wax began at the start of the twentieth century, with demand greatly increasing during World War I and II. This industry largely disappeared following the end of World War II due to diminished candelilla populations and the availability of cheaper petroleum-based waxes.
Abd Al Kuri Euphorbia · Desert Candle · Greek Spiny Spurge · Euphorbia actinoclada · Miniature Saguaro · Pincushion Euphorbia · Euphorbia alcicornis · Euphorbia alfredii · Euphorbia ambarivatoensis · Euphorbia ambovombensis · African candelabra · Euphorbia ampliphylla
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Euphorbia antisyphilitica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
