''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 Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

. 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

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, with great success.

Description

It is an erect, glaucous,

perennial plant A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

growing up to 70 cm 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 to 20 mm long. Leaves on fertile branches are circular-rhombic or reniform. Flower head on a solitary

cyathia A cyathium (plural: cyathia) is one of the specialised pseudanthia ("false flowers") forming the inflorescence of plants in the genus ''Euphorbia'' (Euphorbiaceae). A cyathium consists of: * Five (rarely four) bracteoles. These are small, uni ...

, 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.

References

paralias Flora of Lebanon Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Flora of Malta Flora of the Mediterranean Basin Invasive plant species in Australia {{Euphorbia-stub