Introduced. Perennial. Propagates by seeds and by rootstocks.

Fig. 189.-Sun Spurge (Euphorbia Helioscopia). X1/4.

Time of bloom: June to September.

Seed-time: July to November.

Range: Eastern part of the United States.

Habitat: Fields, roadsides, waste places; frequent in cemeteries.

An escape from flower gardens and cemeteries, where it should never be given a place, for it is as pervading and uncontrollable as Toad-flax. Its tough, horizontal, creeping rootstocks cause it to grow in dense patches, choking out all other growth. In pastures it is said to be very injurious to grazing cattle, but the writer's observation has been that cattle avoid it.

Stems thickly clustered, six inches to a foot in height, erect, scaly at base, very leafy above, with few branches. Leaves linear, deep green, smooth, those subtending the umbels whorled, those on the stalks alternate, crowded, and sessile. Rays of the umbel very numerous, the flowers subtended by greenish yellow, heart-shaped bracts; involucres top-shaped, bearing four crescent-shaped glands without appendages. Pods rounded and granular, with smooth, oblong, ash-gray seeds, caruncled at base. (Fig. 190.)

Means Of Control

Close cutting just at blooming time when the rootstocks are most depleted of their stored nutriment, using salt to retard recovery. Small areas are most quickly dealt with by grubbing out and destroying the rootstocks.