Azores spurge

Euphorbia azorica

Family · Euphorbiaceae · Poisonous

ToxicIrritant

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.

Azores spurge (Euphorbia azorica) — Ixitixel, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz, CC BY 4.0

The spurge endemic to the Azores, growing on sea cliffs and lava flows, with the same white latex and the same warning as the whole family.

Where it grows

Dunes and sand · Scrubland · Uplands

Also known as

Azorean spurge

In flower

How to tell it

An upright plant with a woody base, to a metre, with reddish stems. Elongated fleshy leaves clustered at the top. Yellow-green cup inflorescences with crescent glands, as in other spurges. White latex from any cut. Range: endemic to the Azores.

What it is confused with

No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.

What it is for

None. The latex burns skin and causes serious corneal injury, as in the whole family. A rule with no exceptions: white sap, hands away from the face.

Sources

Flora-On