Euphorbia cyathophora |
Euphorbia deltoidea |
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fire on the mountain, painted leaf, painted poinsettia |
wedge sandmat |
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Habit | Herbs, annual, with spreading taproots. | Herbs, perennial, delicate, with woody, thickened taproot, 15 mm diam.. | ||||||||||||||||
Stems | erect or ascending, 20–100 cm, glabrous, sparsely pilose, or puberulent; branches ± straight. |
prostrate, ascending, or erect, often numerous and wiry, less than 0.1 mm diam., 5–20 cm, glabrous, puberulent, canescent, villous, or hirsute, shorter hairs often uncinate and longer hairs straight or irregularly twisted. |
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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 distinct, triangular, sometimes lacerate or ciliate, 0.2–0.3 mm, glabrous or hairy; petiole 0.3–1 mm, glabrous or hairy; blade narrowly to broadly deltate, cordate, or reniform, 2–5(–7) × 1–4.5(–5) mm, base asymmetric, cordate to rounded, margins entire, ± revolute, apex obtuse or rounded, surfaces glabrous or hairy; only midvein conspicuous. |
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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. |
turbinate to campanulate, 0.8–1 × 1.1–1.3 mm, glabrous or hairy; glands 4, green to yellow-green, oblong to subcircular, 0.2–0.4 × 0.4–0.6 mm; appendages absent or white, forming narrow rim at edge of gland, rarely slightly wider than gland, (0–)0.1(–0.3) × 0.4–0.6 mm, distal margin entire. |
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Staminate flowers | 7–20. |
8–14. |
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Pistillate flowers | ovary glabrous; styles 1.6 mm, 2-fid nearly entire length. |
ovary glabrous or hairy, subtended by triangular pad of tissue; styles spreading, 0.3–0.4 mm, 2-fid 1/2 to nearly entire length. |
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Capsules | green, depressed-globose to ellipsoid, 2.8–3.2 × 4–4.5 mm, 3-lobed, glabrous; columella 2–2.7 mm. |
broadly deltoid, 1.2–1.5 × 2–2.2 mm, glabrous or hairy; columella 0.9–1.3 mm. |
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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. |
reddish brown, ovoid, 4-angled in cross section, 0.8–1.2 × 0.5–0.6 mm, obscurely wrinkled. |
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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 0.7–1.5 mm. |
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2n | = 28, 56. |
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Euphorbia cyathophora |
Euphorbia deltoidea |
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Phenology | Flowering and fruiting late spring–fall. | |||||||||||||||||
Habitat | Bottomland forests, stream and river banks, bases of bluffs, fallow fields, roadsides, open disturbed areas. | |||||||||||||||||
Elevation | 0–1800 m. (0–5900 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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FL |
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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.) |
Subspecies 4 (4 in the flora). Euphorbia deltoidea comprises four narrowly endemic subspecies, all of which are endangered due to habitat loss and fragmentation. The subspecies occur in pine rockland habitat that is free of shrubby undergrowth. Periodic fires are required to keep the rockland habitat open. Subspecies serpyllum is restricted to Big Pine Key, Monroe County, whereas the other subspecies are found only in Miami-Dade County. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 12, p. 319. | FNA vol. 12, p. 265. | ||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Euphorbiaceae > Euphorbia > sect. Poinsettia | Euphorbiaceae > Euphorbia > sect. Anisophyllum | ||||||||||||||||
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Synonyms | Poinsettia cyathophora | Chamaesyce deltoidea | ||||||||||||||||
Name authority | Murray: Commentat. Soc. Regiae Sci. Gott. 7: 81, plate 1. (1786) | Engelmann ex Chapman: Fl. South. U.S. ed. 2, 647. (1883) | ||||||||||||||||
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