Mediterranean spurge
Euphorbia characias
Family · Euphorbiaceae · Poisonous
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This plant, or one that resembles it, is dangerous. Identifying is not authorising: no app has the authority to tell you that you may eat or touch a plant.
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The clump of upright stems with yellow-green heads that fills banks in spring. Break any part and thick white latex flows, which burns skin and blinds if it reaches the eyes.
Scrubland · Roadsides and waste ground · Walls and rocks · Montado
Also known asAlbanian spurge
How to tell it
Immediate white latex from any cut, the signature of the whole family. Narrow bluish leaves in a tight spiral, and cup-shaped green inflorescences with a dark centre.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
None
The rule for every Iberian spurge: white latex means keep your hands off your face and wash. Never cut this plant without gloves.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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