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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Euphorbiaceae
Euphorbia maculata

Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 455 (1753).

Synonymy: Chamaesyce maculata

Common name: Eyebane.

Description:
Procumbent annual, with stems to 20 cm long, often reddish, pubescent with more or less appressed hairs; leaves opposite, on petioles 0.5-1 mm long, ovate-oblong to oblong, 2-13 x 0.5-4 mm, commonly 4-7 x 1-2 mm, slightly curved, obtuse or subacute, asymmetrical at the base, serrulate near the apex, sparingly pubescent above, more densely beneath, often with a purple blotch centrally, often tinted red all over or on the margins only; stipules triangular-subulate, to 1 mm long.

Cyathia usually few, axillary in upper axils or terminal on short branchlets; involucre conical, to 1 mm long, on a short peduncle to 0.5 mm long, green to reddish; glands lunate, with trilobed purplish appendages.

Capsule subglobular, 3-lobed, 1.2-1.5 mm across, shallowly furrowed or grooved, smooth, sparsely covered with closely appressed hairs; seed quadrangular-ovoid, to 0.8 x c. 0.5 mm, apiculate, with 3 or 4 transverse furrows on each concave face, brownish acarunculate.

image of FSA2_Euphorbia_mac.jpg Euphorbia maculata habit, twig, leaf cyathium, gland, fruit and seed.
Image source: fig 401k in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Fiori and Paoletti (1901) Iconographia florae Italicae, fig. 2571.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: NW, EP, NL, MU, YP, SL, KI.   Naturalised in southern Europe, also found in New Zealand. Native to America.

Conservation status: naturalised

Flowering time: Feb.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Taxonomic notes: Often confused with erect plants of E. hypericifolia L. (Burch (1966) Rhodora 68:155-160).

Author: Not yet available


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