''Euphorbia peplis'', the purple spurge, is a species of ''

Euphorbia ''Euphorbia'' is a very large and diverse genus of flowering plants, commonly called spurge, in the family Euphorbiaceae. "Euphorbia" is sometimes used in ordinary English to collectively refer to all members of Euphorbiaceae (in deference to t ...

'', native to southern and western

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, northern

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, and southwestern

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

, where it typically grows on

coast The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...

al sand and shingle.''Flora Europaea''
''Euphorbia peplis''
/ref>Blamey, M. & Grey-Wilson, C. (1989). ''Flora of Britain and Northern Europe''. It is a small, prostrate

annual plant An annual plant is a plant that completes its life cycle, from germination to the production of seeds, within one growing season, and then dies. The length of growing seasons and period in which they take place vary according to geographical ...

, the stems growing to long, typically with four stems from the base. The

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

are opposite, oval, long, grey-green with reddish-purple veins. At the northern edge of its range in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, it has always been rare, and is now

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

.Pearman, D. A. & Preston, C. D. (2002). The last British record of Euphorbia peplis. ''BSBI News'' 91: 25.

References

External links

* * peplis Flora of Africa Flora of Asia Flora of Europe Flora of Lebanon Halophytes Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Euphorbia-stub