Native. Annual. Propagates by seeds.

Time of bloom: May to September.

Seed-time: June to October.

Range: Minnesota to Colorado, southward to Texas, spreading eastward to Ohio; introduced in Eastern States and freely escaping. Habitat: Dry soil; fields, pastures, waste places.

The handsomest of our native Spurges, but dangerous to handle, as the copious milky juice when in contact with the skin causes a swelling and eruption similar to that produced by Poison Ivy; persons unacquainted with its quality often pluck it for its beauty and suffer for it. Honey made from its flowers is poisonous and unfit to use, acting as a violent emetic and purge.

Stem rather stout, two to three feet tall, erect, slightly grooved, usually hairy. Leaves oblong-ovate, pointed, entire, sessile, those on the stalk few and scattered, with a whorl at the base of the umbel, which has usually three fork-branched rays; the bracts subtending the involucres are large, numerous, whorled, broadly margined with white, very showy; involucres clustered in the center, bellshaped, softly downy, bearing five glands subtended by white, kidney-shaped appendages. Capsule depressed, with rounded lobes, usually hairy; seeds bluntly ovoid, dark ash-gray, netted, and tubercled.

Fig. 187.- Spotted Spurge (Euphorbia macu-lata). X1/2.

Means Of Control

Cut repeatedly, close to the ground, permitting no seed to be perfected.