Dwejra, a rugged coastal area on the northwestern coast of Gozo. Aged, layered limestone faces towering high above. The Inland Sea lagoon with its rock tunnel disappearing into the darkening stone wall below. From there, the terrain gradually rises and opens into a wide, sunlit valley. Boulders of all shapes and sizes lie scattered around.
And there she is: a small red plant perched on top of one of them. Everything about her seems unusual - the spot where she sits, the tiny branches holding three-lobed capsules, and the intense red color that makes the narrow leaves resemble starry tongues of flame.
I spend a good few minutes admiring her. I circle the boulder, studying the plant from all different angles. Her beauty is both profound and uncommon. The longer I stare at her, the more intrigued I become. Even more so once I notice those very same starry shapes on a larger, bushy plant nearby. The three-lobbed capsules sprouting from its branches. An older sibling? Except that its leaves are as green as a plant gets. Why is the small one red then? Is there something wrong with her? Does she perhaps turn green as she grows? Or am I just creating drama out of a perfectly normal difference in this plant’s varieties?
I consider and weigh the probability of each of these possibilities while moving around, looking for the best way to summon her captivating appearance in pictures. “Why are you so red?” The question slips through my lips, aiming to do nothing more than give sound to my puzzled thoughts.
“I'm a bit stressed,” sighs the plant in a soft, pleasant voice. It fits her so perfectly that my brain completely forgets to be surprised. Like an actor who skips a line, instead of being baffled that a plant can talk, I jump straight to being puzzled by what she actually says.
I glance around in a sincere confusion.
“Why? It’s so nice and quiet here.”
“Yeah, I know,” she replies. “The neighborhood isn’t the problem. The sun is.”
“The sun?” I raise my brows another bit higher. “I thought you guys liked it.”
“Well, yes. But you know what they say. Too much of a good thing isn’t always a good thing.”
“Ah, I see,” I say, even though I still don’t fully grasp what she’s telling me. The familiar rush of empathy softens my confusion. “I’m really sorry to hear it, plant.”
I’ve got more words competing for the immediate exit than my tongue can handle at this point. I instinctively choose to buy them time.
“My name's Dusan, but you can just call me Dus. Who are you?”
“I'm Euphorbia dendroides. Nice to meet you, Dus.”
“Nice to meet you too,” I respond cheerfully. “Euphoria, you said?”
“E-u-p-h-o-r-b-i-a,” she says slowly and then repeats with a smile “Euphorbia dendroides.” I probably blush a little, but she doesn't seem bothered. Quite the opposite, actually. Her leaves and stems sway gently in a sparse breath of wind. “They call me Tree Spurge around here. I don't mind.”
“Hm, I like Euphorbia,” I hear myself speaking my mind. “It sounds elegant. And it suits you. More than Tree Spurge, if you ask me.”
“Thank you, Dus. That's nice of you to say. I like that name more, too.”
Now I smile back at her.
“I feel like the way you look deserves an elegant name. Do you know what it means? Your name, I mean.”
I register how I play with words and tone. Something about her makes me want to keep talking. I find myself being strangely at ease around this tiny, humble grace.
“I do. But it's a bit of a long story,” she says. I watch her red leaves tremble slightly again. “I was named after Euphorbos. He lived a very long time ago, but he was quite well known. Maybe you've heard of him. He was a doctor.”
I shake my head.
“A Greek physician to King Juba II of Numidia and Mauritania. Something like two thousand years ago.” She pauses briefly. “We're not related, of course, but supposedly he used our sap in his treatments. He believed it could cure diseases.”
“That’s cool!” I react. “And can it?”
“It can,” she nods cautiously. “Sort of. It's complicated. There are things in my sap – the compounds - that can be therapeutic for people. Mostly for their skin, I think.” I like how she goes about choosing her language. “But they're not easy to work with. Euphorbos must have been very careful with us. You know, my sap is toxic. Dangerous. Burning-and-blistering kind of dangerous, you know. If it got into your eyes, you could go blind.”
She sounds apologetic saying that. Ashamed, even. But I only grow more fond of her with every new secret she shares with me.
“And that's why you're red? Because of your sap?”
The question sounds off even to me the very second it leaves my mouth. She already said it was the sun. Dummy me.
“No,” she chuckles softly. “No, no. That's really just because I'm stressed.” She pauses. “I think it's this spot.” She’s quietly taking in the valley around us for a few moments.
“I miss having more water here,” she says. “I mean, it's nice to be up on this boulder and all. You might say I have the view.” Her leaves move slightly in the breeze. “But I've been here for a long time now and, honestly, I think I've grown a little tired of the view. I'd rather be where that guy is.”
She gives me a second to make sure I understand she's referring to the bushy Tree Spurge growing by a low stone wall nearby. It too carries hints of red and purple among its greenery, but only at the very tips of the branches. They resemble the polished fingernails of someone wearing a long-sleeved green dress.
“Hm.” I glance toward the other plant, then back at her. “So you turn red when you're stressed,” I say quietly and let go of the urge to repeat that I'm sorry. This girl is much tougher than she may look. There’s not a trace of complaint in her clear, melodic voice. She is calm and deeply rooted. That's the difference between talking about stress and talking about stress while knowing how to handle it. "It's how you handle it, right?" I ask. "How does it work, then?" A truly helpful empathy draws some of its strength from genuine understanding. At least, in my case.
“You want to go technical, Dus?” she asks. It’s nice to feel she’s enjoying our conversation. In spite of me occasionally throwing in an infantile question.
I nod, enthusiastically.
“Alright. So, when I sit under strong sun for too long and don’t get enough water, my body starts producing what’s known as anthocyanin pigments. They give me reddish and purplish tones. Mostly on my leaves and stems.”
“Anthocyanins,” I repeat quietly.
She nods.
“Anthocyans, for short. They’re like dyes. Stress colors, basically.”
For a moment she falls silent and I can somehow sense that her mind questions having mentioned the stress again.
“It could still be seasonal, I suppose,” she says with a pinch of hesitation. “Sometimes new leaves appear reddish. Old leaves too, before they fall. But this,” her leaves sway gently and the voice returns to its former certainty, “this feels different.”
The wind moves softly through the valley. I don’t really know what to say. I still know too little about what can possibly be the cause for her stress. I’m a learner, not a teacher here.
“In the world of plants,” she continues, “green usually means life. Chlorophyll. The thing that lets us catch sunlight and turn it into energy. But sometimes green alone just isn't enough. When things become difficult — too much sun, too little water, too cold — some of us change color. We turn red because the red protects us.”
“How?” I crouch a little closer to her.
“The anthocyanins absorb excess light. A bit like your sunscreens, I suppose. They protect the delicate structures inside the leaves. And they help clean up whatever harmful buildup accumulates inside us when we become stressed.”
“So even when you’re red, there’s still photosynthesis going on in you? You're still making energy?”
She sounds faintly amused by the question.
“Dus,” she says gently, “I'm stressed. Not dead.”
I laugh quietly and she looks at me with a kind patience.
“The chlorophyll is still there,” she explains. “Just less visible. The red sits over it like a filter. It slows things down a little, but it shields what matters.”
The breeze returns for a brief moment. Her lean branches softly tremble.
“In summer, a life can be hard here. Things become difficult. Very dry. Very bright. I sometimes have to let the leaves go altogether.”
“You drop them? On purpose?”
She nods.
“It’s easier that way. Less water lost. Less damage.” In another warm breath of the wind she lightheartedly shrugs. “I just rest until things improve.”
For a while neither of us says anything. I glance toward the green plant near the wall. Then back at her. Then it suddenly occurs to me how I’ve been interpreting her redness through an emotion of a different species.
“You know,” I say slowly, “for us humans, red often means danger.”
“Yes,” she replies gently. “For us too, sometimes. Just not always. Sometimes red simply means we're trying to stay healthy the best way we can.”
As her leaves move once again in the wind, the valley falls quiet. I look around at the rocks, the dry grass, the exposed landscape of the arid island constantly facing the Mediterranean sun. This is her home. There isn’t really much unexpected or out of the ordinary in it for her. Her body knows exactly when to turn red, just like mine knows when to put on a darker tan.
“Thank you, Euphorbia.” I say. Then I stand up, stretching my legs.
“You’re welcome, Dus.”
“I hope I’ll see you again,” I give her leaves my most gentle touch and I smile.
“I hope to see you, too. Stop by whenever, I’m always here.” she replies.
I’m about to leave when I suddenly realize something. I turn to her once more.
“I have a motorbike. She’s waiting for me down by the road. Her name is Lim. She’s lime green, you know.“
I pause.
“I just though it would be so funny if I come back to her and find out she’s turned red in the meantime.”
She bursts out laughing.
“You’re silly,” she says and laughs on. I know exactly how she means that.
“I’d love her no matter what,” I say reassuringly with the straightest face I’m able to pull before smiling again and waving her goodbye.
She continues chuckling long after I walk away. As I find my way down the rocky path, I hear the little echoes of her laughter. They play around the weathered cliffs and linger with me even after leaving the valley.
Crossing a parking lot filled with tourist chatter, I smile. My Lim waits exactly where I left her. She's still, indeed, lime green.
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You can find my plant and animal observations on iNaturalist - an online social network for sharing biodiversity information, a crowdsourced species identification system and a tool for recording organism occurrences.
Based on my earlier article Red Is The New Green, published on Medium on May 22, 2025.
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