Dwarf spurge
Euphorbia exigua
Family · Euphorbiaceae · Irritating
The smallest and finest spurge you will find in a cornfield, with needle-like leaves and just a few centimetres of height. It has the same latex and the same rule as its larger cousins.
Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Town and roadside
Also known assmall spurge
How to tell it
A tiny slender plant, blue-green, with narrow needle-pointed leaves. White latex even in a stem thin as a thread. Crescent glands with two horns, typical of the genus.
What it is confused with
Petty spurge
Euphorbia peplus
The leaf: broad and oval on petty spurge, needle-narrow here. Both with latex, both toxic.
What it is for
None
It is here for a practical reason: it shows that the latex warning applies to the whole family, even to members that look too small to matter.
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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