Sun spurge
Euphorbia helioscopia
Family · Euphorbiaceae · Poisonous
Read this before the sheet
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.
The commonest spurge of gardens and pots, pale green and harmless-looking, with an inflorescence opening in five rays that turn towards the sun. Break a stem and the problem becomes clear.
Town and roadside · Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground
Also known asmadwoman's milk, wartweed
How to tell it
Immediate white latex from any cut. Spoon-shaped leaves, finely toothed at the tip, pale green and hairless. At the top, five rays dividing again, with yellow-green bracts that look like petals.
What it is confused with
Petty spurge
Euphorbia peplus
They live in the same pot and are equally toxic, so the distinction is curiosity rather than safety. Sun spurge has leaves toothed at the tip and five rays; petty spurge has smooth-edged leaves and three rays.
Open sheet →What it is for
None. It was used on warts for its caustic latex, like celandine, and it is precisely because it is caustic that it is not used: it burns healthy skin just as effectively. Swallowed, it causes severe inflammation of the mouth and gut.