Ontario Weeds: Dentate spurge
Return to the Ontario Weeds Gallery
Excerpt from Publication 505, Ontario Weeds, Order this publication
Table of Contents
- Name
- Other Names
- Family
- General Description
- Stems and Roots
- Flowers and Fruit
- Habitat
- Similar Species
- Related Links
Name: Dentate spurge, Euphorbia dentata
Michx.,
Other Names: euphorbe dentée
Family: Spurge Family (Euphorbiaceae)
General Description: Annual, reproducing
only by seed.
Dentate spurge. Top of plant in fruit.
Stems & Roots: Stems erect, 20-120cm (8-48in.) high, with ascending branches, and roughened with short hairs; leaves mostly opposite, occasionally alternate, linear to ovate, hairy; their margins coarsely to shallowly dentate (toothed) to almost smooth;
Flowers & Fruit: Flowers individually tiny and borne in a complex cup-like structure called a cyathium, as described for Leafy spurge, the rim of the cyathium with 5 oblong, sharply dentate lobes and 1 (or more) short-stalked broad glands; seedpods 3-lobed and containing 3 seeds; the seeds ovoid, rough-tuberculate, 1-3mm (1/25-1/8in.). The entire plant, except its seeds, contains a white, milky juice. Flowers from July to September.
Habitat: Dentate spurge is found in dry soil in cultivated fields, roadsides, railway banks and waste places in southern Ontario.
Similar Species: It is distinguished from most other plants by the combination of mostly opposite, coarsely toothed leaves and milky juice throughout, and from other spurges by its stem leaves being almost always opposite and hairy on both sides, and the presence of usually only one gland on the involucre.
Related Links
... on general Weed
topics
... on weed identification, order OMAFRA
Publication 505: Ontario Weeds
... on weed control, order OMAFRA
Publication 75: Guide To Weed Control
For more information:
Toll Free: 1-877-424-1300
E-mail: ag.info.omafra@ontario.ca