Spurge Family [Euphorbiaceae] |
status
flower
inner
petals
stem
stem
stem
toxicity
contact
sex
18th Feb 2013, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
After the wettest year on record, the plant is spreading to pastures anew. Flowering in mid February! |
18th Feb 2013, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
Has succulent-like thick reddish stems. Flowers still developing. |
18th Feb 2013, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
The crescent shapes are there even in young flowers. |
20th April 2009, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
Two months later in the year the plants have matured more.
A semi-shade-loving garden plant that escapes into the wild; this one growing wild about a garden. |
20th April 2009, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
A perennial about 90cm tall that is un-branched (apart from the flowering stalks). There is a stem-leaf just under every furcation of a flowering stem, and a whorl of five leaves just where the top-most flowering stems trifurcate. |
22nd April 2008, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
Like all spurges, the flowers are minute and lack petals. |
22nd April 2008, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
The flower has are four yellowish-green spanner-head-shaped lobes (here some are going brownish) and a short stalk with a stalked female flower with a small green rounded fruit topped by three styles that bifurcate in two. The four male flowers are much smaller with just one minute stamen, not discernible in this photo. The paired lime-green cups are not leaves but bracts. |
5th April 2006, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
20th April 2009, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
The single stamens (which have a short bifurcation at the tip) of the four male flowers are at the centre of the four spanner-head shaped yellow crescents, which are parts of the flower. |
22nd April 2008, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
The paired bract under the ultimate paired flower has two nicks and is perfoliate encircling the stem. |
22nd April 2008, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
The single stamens (which have a short bifurcation at the tip and yellow pollen) of the four male flowers are at the foot of the four spanner-head shaped yellow crescents. Your Author doesn't know what the even tinier white bits are, maybe they do have (minuscule) petals after all? The fruits are slightly knobbly and have two hardly discernible lobes. |
20th April 2009, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
This flower seems to have suffered a little damage. |
11th April 2020, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
The central flowers and fruit. The three (split into two) styles atop (and in front of) the growing fruit (large 'ball' shaped object. Two stalks either side in the centre bearing an opposite pair of paired bracts, each with another developing male and female flower within. |
11th April 2020, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
The split styles atop the developing fruit. |
11th April 2020, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
View from the other side of the floral parts showing the male flower, which has 4 pale yellow-green glands, each with a deep central nick making each gland look like a spanner head. Scattered about are two filaments which fork into two stubby stamens with golden yellow pollen atop.
There are two more stamens which appear to have developed in the wrong place on this specimen, being on the the glands where they should not be. They are obviously starved of nutrients there for their filaments are much narrowed and the anthers almost globular with just a few pollen grains on them. |
11th April 2020, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
A closer view of the above photo. With identical captions.
View from the other side of the floral parts showing the male flower, which has 4 pale yellow-green glands, each with a deep central nick making each gland look like a spanner head. Scattered about are two filaments which fork into two stubby stamens with golden yellow pollen atop.
|
20th April 2009, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
New leaves have a shiny dark-green appearance and are hairless, un-like the very similar Wood Spurge(Euphorbia amygdaloides ssp. amygdaloides) and which has hairs on the underside of the leaves. |
20th April 2009, a garden, Walkden, Gtr M/cr. | Photo: © RWD |
Single un-branched stem reddens towards the ground. Lower leaves in rosettes around stem. |
Easily mis-identified as :
No relation to : Like all Spurges, the stems will ooze a toxic and caustic latex if broken which should not be allowed to make contact with the skin. In fact, handling Spurges with bare hands is never wise, contact dermatitis can result. A garden plant that readily escapes into the wild, occupying woods, hedgerows and other places in the semi-shade.
|
Euphorbia | amygdaloides ssp. robbiae | ⇐ Global Aspect ⇒ | Euphorbiaceae |
Euphorbia (Spurges) |
Spurge Family [Euphorbiaceae] |