Home Flora of Missouri
Home
Name Search
Families
Volumes
Euphorbia cyparissias L. Search in The Plant ListSearch in IPNISearch in Australian Plant Name IndexSearch in NYBG Virtual HerbariumSearch in Muséum national d'Histoire naturelleSearch in Type Specimen Register of the U.S. National HerbariumSearch in Virtual Herbaria AustriaSearch in JSTOR Plant ScienceSearch in SEINetSearch in African Plants Database at Geneva Botanical GardenAfrican Plants, Senckenberg Photo GallerySearch in Flora do Brasil 2020Search in Reflora - Virtual HerbariumSearch in Living Collections Decrease font Increase font Restore font
 

Published In: Species Plantarum 1: 461. 1753. (1 May 1753) (Sp. Pl.) Name publication detailView in BotanicusView in Biodiversity Heritage Library
 

Project Name Data (Last Modified On 8/11/2017)
Acceptance : Accepted
Project Data     (Last Modified On 7/9/2009)
Status: Introduced

 

Export To PDF Export To Word

4. Euphorbia cyparissias L. (cypress spurge, graveyard spurge)

Map 1666, Pl. 380 a, b

Plants perennial herbs, with a fleshy rootstock and usually rhizomes. Stems 15–40 cm long, erect or ascending, unbranched below the inflorescence or often with several short, densely leafy vegetative branches in the median and upper leaf axils, the branches not flattened toward the tip, usually green to yellowish green, sometimes reddish- or purplish-tinged toward the base, glabrous. Leaves alternate below the inflorescence branches (those of the inflorescence branches usually opposite) but closely spaced (crowded, especially toward the stem tip), sessile. Stipules absent. Leaf blades 10–30 mm long, unlobed, the margins entire, the surfaces glabrous, yellowish green to green; those below the inflorescence linear to narrowly oblanceolate, rounded or angled at the base, mostly angled or short-tapered to a sharply pointed tip; those along the inflorescence branches broadly ovate to nearly heart-shaped or somewhat kidney-shaped, rounded to cordate at the base, mostly broadly angled to a sharply pointed tip. Inflorescences terminal umbellate panicles with a whorl of leaves at the base and with each of the up to 10 primary branches sometimes branched 1 or 2 additional times, the cyathia solitary at the branch tips. Involucre 2–3 mm long, glabrous, the rim shallowly 4-lobed to nearly entire, the marginal glands 4, 0.8–1.3 mm long, crescent with each end appearing as a short, outward-curved horn, greenish yellow to yellow, lacking a petaloid appendage. Staminate flowers 15–25 per cyathium. Ovaries glabrous, but the surface pebbled or minutely warty, the styles 0.5–1.0 mm long, each divided 1/5–1/4 of the way from the tip into 2 somewhat club-shaped lobes. Fruits produced in relatively few cyathia, 2.5–3.0 mm long, glabrous but the surface pebbled or finely warty, especially toward the sutures. Seeds 1.5–2.0 mm long, oblong-elliptic in outline, nearly circular in cross-section, rounded or somewhat angled at the base, the surface smooth, grayish brown to silvery gray, with a small, nipplelike caruncle. 2n=20, 40. April–August.

Introduced, scattered to uncommon, mostly in counties adjacent to the Missouri and Mississippi River floodplains (native of Europe, Asia, introduced widely but sporadically in the U.S., Canada). Glades, ledges and tops of bluffs, bottomland forests, and edges of mesic upland forests; also cemeteries, gardens, railroads, and roadsides.

 


 

 
 
© 2024 Missouri Botanical Garden - 4344 Shaw Boulevard - Saint Louis, Missouri 63110