Does any one know something about the flower named...Euphorbia?

I think it is also called Crown of Thorns

Does any one know something about the flower named...Euphorbia?
Euphorbia milii is a slow-growing, ferociously thorny,semi-succulent shrub with bright green leaves. It is native to Madagascar.


Deciduous in cooler areas, it tolerates dry conditions and grows to a height of about 3'. It is excellent in frost-free rock gardens or sunny courtyards and is often used as a low hedge in coastal areas. Culture:Sun or part shade; in moist, well-drained soil;Cold hardiness varies depending on the species,the more highly succulent species are generally frost tender.Propagate from cuttings in spring or summer,allowing succulent species to dry and callus before placing in barely damp sand, by division in early spring or fall, or from seed in fall or spring.
Reply:Spurges (genus Euphorbia) are a very large and variable worldwide plant taxon, belonging to the spurge family, or Euphorbiaceae.





Origin of the name


The common name spurge derives from the Middle English / Old French: espurge, to purge, due to the use of the plants sap as purgative.


The botanical name Euphorbia derives from the Greek Euphorbus, physician of king Juba II of Numidia (52-50 BC - 23 AD), in whose honour – or in allusion to his swollen belly – a certain plant he might have used (Euphorbia resinifera?) was named. In 1753 Linnaeus assigned the name to the entire genus (Spec. Pl. (ed. 1): 450). Type species is Euphorbia antiquorum





Description


The genus ranges from small trees, shrubs, vines to herbaceous plants. A significant percentage of these are succulent plant, some of which remarkably resemble cacti despite being unrelated, an example of convergent evolution. To the exception of a few species (i.e. Euphorbia hedytoides or Euphorbia curtisii), this genus is composed of monoecious species.





Spurges have a highly specialized inflorescence: the cyathium, which are reduced unisexual flowers grouped into characteristic pseudanthia. It consists of a central pistillate flower surrounded by five groups of staminate flowers. All flowers are enclosed within an involucre with four marginal glands. The central flower develops before the surrounding male ones, thus each cyathium functions like a protogynous hermaphrodite flower. The glands of the cyathium usually produce nectar, and pollination is mainly zoophilous. Indeed, the cyathium looks so much like a hermaphrodite flower that Carolus Linnaeus and other authors interpreted it as a true flower. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck however interpreted the cyathium as an inflorescence and this is now recognized.





Spurges contain an acrid, poisonous milky latex, and some of them are armed with thorns. Most of the spurges yield powerful emetic and cathartic products.





Euphorbia species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Giant Leopard Moth.





Distribution


The genus is primarily found in the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa and the Americas, but also in temperate zones worldwide. Succulent species are mostly originated from Africa, the Americas and Madagascar.








Taxonomy


The genus Euphorbia is one of the largest and most complex genera of flowering plants and several botanists have made unsuccessfully attempts to subdivide the genus into numerous smaller genera. Now according to recent DNA studies Euphorbia can be divided into 6 subgenera, each containing several not yet sufficiently studied sections and groups...