Euphorbia cyathophora |
Euphorbia astyla |
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fire on the mountain, painted leaf, painted poinsettia |
alkali spurge, Pecos spurge |
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Habit | Herbs, annual, with spreading taproots. | Herbs, perennial, with woody or fibrous-fleshy taproot, 5–12 mm thick. |
Stems | erect or ascending, 20–100 cm, glabrous, sparsely pilose, or puberulent; branches ± straight. |
decumbent, ascending, or erect, few to many emerging from woody crown, 5–25(–50) cm, glabrous. |
Leaves | usually alternate, occasionally opposite proximally; petiole 2–20 mm, glabrous or pilose, or often hispid abaxially near blade junction; blade linear, lanceolate, elliptic, or wider leaves pandurate and unequally 4-lobed, occasionally polymorphic on single plants, 15–250 × 4–40 mm, base acute to cuneate, margins subulately glandular-serrulate distally, or sparsely glandular and subentire, hirtellous to glabrate, flat to revolute, apex acute to cuneate, abaxial surface sparsely pilose or glabrate, adaxial surface glabrous or sparsely puberulent; venation pinnate, midvein prominent. |
opposite; stipules connate into deltate scale, 0.2–0.5 mm, minutely lacerate at apex, glabrous; petiole 0–0.2(–0.3) mm, glabrous; blade orbiculate-reniform to acute-cordate, 2–5(–8) × 2–5(–6) mm, base ± asymmetric, cordate to auriculate, sometimes clasping stem, margins entire, apex narrowly acute, surfaces glabrous; 2- or 3-veined from base, but usually only midvein conspicuous. |
Involucre | campanulate, occasionally broadly so, 1.8–2.8 × 2.2–2.8 mm, glabrous; involucral lobes triangularly 3–5 lobed; gland 1, yellow-green, sessile to substipitate and narrowly to broadly attached, 1–1.4 × 0.9–1.6 mm, opening oblong (flattened without pressing), without annular rim, glabrous; appendages absent. |
broadly campanulate, 0.8–1.4 × 0.9–1.4 mm, glabrous; glands 4, yellow-green to brownish, oblong, 0.2–0.3 × 0.5–0.7 mm; appendages white, flabellate to oblong, 0.1–0.2(–0.5) × 0.4–0.8 mm, distal margin entire or dentate-crenate. |
Staminate flowers | 7–20. |
22–26. |
Pistillate flowers | ovary glabrous; styles 1.6 mm, 2-fid nearly entire length. |
ovary glabrous; styles 0.3–0.4 mm, unbranched, thickened-clavate. |
Capsules | green, depressed-globose to ellipsoid, 2.8–3.2 × 4–4.5 mm, 3-lobed, glabrous; columella 2–2.7 mm. |
ovoid and broadly triangular, 1.5–1.9(–2.5) × 1.4–1.6(–2.2) mm, glabrous; columella 1.2–1.8 mm. |
Seeds | black to ashy gray or light brown, cylindric to ovoid, rounded in cross section, 2.3–3.1 × 1.9–2.5 mm, uniformly tuberculate or tubercles arranged in median, transverse ridge in cylindric seeds; caruncle absent. |
white, oblong, 4-angled in cross section, adaxial faces slightly concave, with long raphe between, 1.5–1.8 × 0.7–1 mm, markedly foveolate, with irregular to ± parallel or anastomosing ridges. |
Cyathial | arrangement: terminal pleiochasial branches (1–)3, 1–2-branched; pleiochasial bracts 2–3(–4), often as tight, involucrate whorl, usually green with white, pink, or red at base, occasionally distal bracts wholly white, pink, or red, rarely all bracts wholly green, similar in shape and size to distal leaves; dichasial bracts often colored, similar in shape and size to distal stem leaves or highly reduced. |
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Cyathia | peduncle 1.6–2.8 mm. |
solitary at distal nodes; peduncle 0.3–1(–1.5) mm. |
2n | = 28, 56. |
= 28. |
Euphorbia cyathophora |
Euphorbia astyla |
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Phenology | Flowering and fruiting late spring–fall. | Flowering and fruiting late spring–early fall. |
Habitat | Bottomland forests, stream and river banks, bases of bluffs, fallow fields, roadsides, open disturbed areas. | Desert, grasslands, limestone substrates, usually on very saline or alkaline soils. |
Elevation | 0–1800 m. (0–5900 ft.) | 700–1100 m. (2300–3600 ft.) |
Distribution |
AL; AR; CA; FL; GA; IA; IL; IN; KS; KY; LA; MD; MN; MO; MS; NC; NE; NM; OH; OK; SC; SD; TN; TX; UT; VA; WI; Mexico; Central America; South America; West Indies [Introduced in Eurasia, Africa, Indian Ocean Islands, Pacific Islands, Australia]
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TX; Mexico (Coahuila, Nuevo León) |
Discussion | Euphorbia cyathophora is native to the midwestern and southeastern United States, Mexico, the West Indies, and northern South America. Leaf shape can be polymorphic on individuals of this species, but not to the extent as in E. heterophylla. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Euphorbia astyla is a specialist on halophytic, alkaline soils and is known in the flora area only in part of Pecos County. The species is closely related to E. jejuna but differs in its sessile or sub-sessile leaves with a cordate-auriculate base and involucral gland appendages that are not deeply lobed or cleft. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 12, p. 319. | FNA vol. 12, p. 261. |
Parent taxa | Euphorbiaceae > Euphorbia > sect. Poinsettia | Euphorbiaceae > Euphorbia > sect. Anisophyllum |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Poinsettia cyathophora | Chamaesyce astyla |
Name authority | Murray: Commentat. Soc. Regiae Sci. Gott. 7: 81, plate 1. (1786) | Engelmann ex Boissier: in A. P. de Candolle and A. L. P. P. de Candolle, Prodr. 15(2): 40. (1862) |
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