Euphorbia spathulata

Warty spurge, Warty Spurge

Family: Euphorbiaceae · Type: annual · Native

Warty spurge is a California native annual found in the California Floristic Province in open, generally disturbed places at elevations below 1,300 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces small flowers in clusters with leaf-like bracts. Growing with glabrous stems 5 to 45 centimeters tall, it has distinctive obovate to spoon-shaped leaves with finely toothed edges. Its leaves are arranged alternately on the lower stem, with the uppermost leaves forming a distinctive whorl of three. The fruit is a small, spherical, lobed structure with tubercles, particularly near the tip.

Habitat: Open, generally disturbed places

Bloom period: Mar-Jun

Elevation: < 1300 m

Bioregions: CA-FP

California counties: San Luis Obispo, Kern, Butte, Fresno, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Lake, Napa, Siskiyou, San Mateo, Calaveras, San Francisco, Placer, Ventura, Lassen, Monterey, Yolo, Santa Barbara, Sutter, Santa Clara, Tehama, San Benito, Tulare, Modoc, Sonoma, Colusa, El Dorado, Sacramento, Amador, Contra Costa, Nevada, San Joaquin, Merced, Yuba, Glenn, Mendocino, Solano, Santa Cruz, Humboldt, Alameda, Trinity, Mono, Stanislaus, Shasta

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.