Leaves, flowers, and fruiting bodies. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Mt Stromlo, ACT

Flowers and leaves. Photo: Malcolm Storey, Berkshire, England

Plant. Photo: Malcolm Storey, East Sussex, England

Common Name

Petty Spurge, Radium Plant

Family

Euphorbiaceae

Notes

Introduced annual forb to 40cm tall.  Lower leaves alternating up the stems, leaves on flowering branches opposite each other. Leaves 0.5-2.5cm long, 3-16mm wide, flat, hairless.  Male and female flowers on the same plant. Flowers small (less than 3mm across), yellowish green, with 0 petals, in small heads that look like a single conical flower, each head composed of several male flowers surrounding 1 female flower, on stalks arising from the bases of the leaves or at the ends of short branches, or at tne fork of repeatedly forked short branchlets, in dense leafy clusters at the ends of the stems.

Description and photo in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 457

eFlora of South Australia description with line drawings:   http://www.flora.sa.gov.au/cgi-bin/speciesfacts_display.cgi?form=speciesfacts&name=Euphorbia_peplus