Upright Spurge - Euphorbia stricta
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Species Description
Open, shaded places on calcareous soils or alluvial gravels and clays such as deciduous woodland, tracks, hedge banks etc. Growing habit: Annual to Biennial. Height: Up to 80 cm. Populations tend to decline as shade and competition increase, but soil disturbance stimulates the germination of even long-buried seeds. First recorded in the wild in 1773. In decline with many populations now comprising less than twenty individuals. Increasing as a garden escape.
Stace 4:
Euphorbia stricta L. (E. serrulata Thuill.) - Upright Spurge.
Glabrous erect annual to 80cm; leaves as in E. platyphyllos but narrower though often cordate at base; capsules with prominent cylindrical papillae, glabrous; seeds smooth; (2n=20, 28). Probably native; limestone woods in about 10 places in West Gloucestershire, Monmouthshire and Glamorgan, naturalised rarely in England North to West Lancashire and Mid West Yorkshire, Moray.
Key:
- Annuals with simple root system
- Capsules with cylindrical papillae; umbel with 2-5 main branches, the bracts at that node intermediate between leaves below and bracts at next higher node
Useful Links:
Ecological Flora of the Britain and Ireland