Mediterranean region and Sinai.
Atlantic Islands, Mediterranean region, west Europe, Black Sea coasts.
Maritime sands.
Perennial.
Euphorbia paralias, the sea spurge,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the family Euphorbiaceae, native to Europe, northern Africa and western Asia.[2]
The species is widely naturalised in Australia.[3] It invades coastal areas, displacing local species and colonising open sand areas favoured by certain nesting birds.[4] Major eradication programmes have been undertaken in some areas, for example by Sea Spurge Remote Area Teams in Tasmania, with great success.[5]
It is an erect, glaucous, perennial plant growing up to 70 centimetres (28 in) tall. The plant has many stems, dividing into 3–5 fertile branches, each branching further. The cauline leaves (arising from the stem, without stalk) are crowded, overlapping, elliptic-ovate (ovate toward the top of the stems), fleshy and 5–20 millimetres (0.2–0.8 in) long. Leaves on fertile branches are circular-rhombic or reniform. Flower head on a solitary cyathia, found in upper forks or at the apex, surrounded by bell-shaped bracts. Female flowers are with styles that divide into two short stigmas, flowering September–May. Fruit is a capsule flattened from above or nearly spherical, deep furrows, wrinkled on keels. Seeds ovoid, pale-grey and smooth. There is a kidney-shaped fleshy outgrowth from the seed coat.[6][3]
Euphorbia paralias, the sea spurge, is a species of flowering plant in the family Euphorbiaceae, native to Europe, northern Africa and western Asia.
The species is widely naturalised in Australia. It invades coastal areas, displacing local species and colonising open sand areas favoured by certain nesting birds. Major eradication programmes have been undertaken in some areas, for example by Sea Spurge Remote Area Teams in Tasmania, with great success.
