Thick, fleshy stem, very long thin triangular leaves

Hello everybody. I've just joined here, basically because I have this strange plant in my garden and would like to know whether I need to pull it up before it flowers!

I've had them here before, but they've always wilted before flowering, so I've never found out what flowers they produce!

They start off with a light-ish green thick (about 1 cm diameter, I'd guess) fleshy stem (a bit like a hyacinth) with very long thin leaves which are actually a very elongated triangle: dark green, with a white stripe along the middle, leaves in pairs, each pair being offset by 90 degrees to the pair immediately below it. At this stage, they're maybe 30 cm high. They've now shot up to perhaps 75 cm in height, and have now produced a lot of smaller stems with rather exotic-looking flower heads which shoot out at about 45 degrees to the main stem. These heads have smaller leaves which are much more noticeably triangular than the bottom ones.

I've been through various gardening books, and been unable to find anything definite, because the pictures usually show the plant when in flower. The only thing that looks even vaguely similar is Euphorbia griffithii, but I can't find any detailed enough photographs to confirm whether or not it is.

Hoping I've managed to attach the photos properly!

Thanks very much for any attempts at identification.

 

Alywin, good evening and welcome to the site. Have a look at Tradescantia Zebrina pendula.

 

Hello, daitheplant, and thanks for the welcome. No, I don't think it's that, but thanks for the suggestion

 

Any chance of a pic?

 

Euphorbia Lathyrus, get shot it seeds everywhere

 

Yep. Managed to compress them so the site'd accept them. They're in my first post now

 

That's it! (Did you guess with or without the photos?) So I was at least on the right track with Euphorbia. And thanks, I will dig it up, then - presumably with the usual precautions about the sap - but might just wait to see what it looks like when it flowers first. On the other hand, it's a Euphorbia - is it even going to *have* any pretty flowers?

Many thanks to both of you.

 

No I must admit I needed the pic :WINK1:

You wont actually notice the flowers they are fairly insignificant.

The seed pods are explosive and fire seeds all over the place.:D

 

Your Euphorbia lathris, common name caper spurge has already flowered.
The round bulbous bits on the top are the seed pods.



Euphorbia lathyris image (PIER)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/buzzard-2/3834050363/

 

Good point Surfer.

 

Oh, eek, that's not good - glad you pointed that out (the board won't let me quote, for some reason). I'll go and pull them up tomorrow - I mean today.

Thanks once again, everyone.