Plant in a well-draining soil in full sun to even pretty deep shade (where foliage is a bit darker and stems more lanky) and water little if at all to occasionally - with abundant water expect much faster growth and a larger plant. Protect from hard frost as it is hardy only down to about 25 to 30 degrees. Our large plant in the garden withstood the Christmas 1990 freeze where temperatures dropped to 18° F but with considerable damage. In the January 2007 freeze plants in the garden weathered 3 nights down to 25 degrees without damage. Individual plants may only live for about 10 to 15 years but will often set abundant seed which germinates to produce new plants in the garden. Fortunately, these seedlings are easy to dig to relocate or compost but avoid the white sap which can be irritating to eyes and skin. This plant sometimes has stems that spontaneously crest (also called fasciation) with the fan of leaves spreading out along a broadly horizontal stem tip.

Euphorbia lambii comes from the island of Gomera in the Canary Islands where it grows in the forest margins of the northwest and central areas of the island from 2,000 to 2,600 feet in elevation and is considered rare in habitat. The name for the genus is derived from Euphorbus, the Greek physician of King Juba II of Numidia and later of Mauritania. In 12 B.C. King Juba named a cactus-like plant he found in the Atlas Mountains after his physician and later Carl Linnaeus assigned the name Euphorbia to the entire genus. The specific epithet "lambii" given to this plant in 1960 by the Swedish born Canary Island botanist Eric Sventenius honored the British nurseryman and succulent plant book author, Edgar Lamb (1905-1980). This spelling was how the name was originally published in Additamentum ad Floram Canariensem (1: 27. 1960) though later publications list the name as Euphorbia lambiorum. The suffix 'orum' often indicates a name honors more than one person and perhaps the name was changed to also honor Edgar's son Brian, who was a partner in the Lamb's The Exotic Collection Nursery in Worthing in East Sussex and co-author of several of the succulent books they published together. More recent phylogenetic work has determined that this plant is synonymous with a smaller growing species, Euphorbia bourgaeana, that is also found on the island of Gomera due to overlapping morphological and distributional traits. This name honors Eugène Bourgeau (1813–1877), a French botanist and plant collector who gathered the type specimen an 1855 expedition to the Canary Islands.

We continually grew this interesting plant at our nursery from 1994 until we closed in 2025 and we had amazing large (to 18 feet tall!) specimens growing in the nursery garden. We continue to list it as Euphorbia lambii until such time we feel that the name Euphorbia bourgaeana becomes a more commonly recognized name. 

The information displayed on this page about Euphorbia lambii is based on our research conducted about this plant from books in our nursery library as well as from information that is provided by reliable online resources. We also have included our own observations made about it as it grew in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers when we had them in our nursery field. We also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.