thorny vinelike plant of the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae), popular as a houseplant and in the tropics as a garden shrub. Flowering is year-round, but most plentiful in wintertime in the Northern Hemisphere. The sprawling, branching, vinelike stems attain lengths of more than two metres (seven feet). Native to Madagascar, crown of thorns has stout, gray spines, oval leaves that drop as they age, and paired clusters of small flowers surrounded by two light-red bracts (leaflike structures attached just below flowers). Various forms are available with yellow or deep-red bracts.