Euphorbia paralias

Common name: Sea Spurge
Scientific name: Euphorbia paralias
Genus: Euphorbia 大戟屬
Family: Euphorbiaceae 大戟科, spurge family

Remarks:

Origin: native

Date:  21st June

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273 A prostrate to erect, glabrous, glaucous perennial, can reach up to 40 cm, with unbranched steril and flowering stems.

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286 Flowers, bracts at the top of the stem.

293 Leaves.

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290 Leaves start to wither near the base of the stem.

294 Base of the stem.

295 Base of the stem.

292 Underside of the leaves. Leaves ovate-oblong, sessile, fleshy, blunt, 0.5-2 cm, crowded and overlapping, midrib obscure beneath,

279 Bracts.

283 Umbel 3-6 rayed.

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Glands (4 above) horned.

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1 male flower already protruding from the cyathium.

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Stigma of the female flower could be clearly seen protruding from the cyathium, 4 horned glands could also be seen above.

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The female flower had already changed into a capsule? hanging outwards from the cyathium. At least 2 male flowers (1 stamens represents 1 male flower) could be seen above.

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Stigma from female flower protruding from a cyathium (right of the photo).

Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae

Common name: Wood Spurge
Scientific name of the subspecies: Euphorbia amygdaloides subsp. robbiae
Scientific name: Euphorbia amygdaloides 扁桃葉大戟
Genus: Euphorbia 大戟屬
Family: Euphorbiaceae 大戟科, spurge family

Remarks:

Origin: Neophyte (established after 1500 AD). It is a native of N.W. Turkey. It was first cultivated in 1891 and was recorded from the wild since 1977.

Date:  25th March

The whole plant.

The upper part of the plant to show the inflorescences.

Those yellowish and green leaves-like structure are all bracts.

The green bracts here arranged in a whorl.

But those green bracts lower in the stem are not arranged in a whorl.

Some green bracts are opposite (lower in the photo), but some are alternate (upper in the photo).

Leaves in the upper stems.

Those leaves of the lower part of the stem are arranged in whorls.

The yellowish green circular leaves-like structures above just below the cyathium 大戟花序, 杯狀聚傘花序 (the condensed inflorescence in Euphorbia) are also bracts. Enlarged below to see the details of the flower.

For each cyathium, there are four crescent-shaped glands (like horns of a cow), several stamens (they are male flowers actually) and one female flower (you could see the ball-like ovary, the gynophore 雌蕊柄 (the stalk below the ovary) and the style with five stigmas). There are two more cyathiums (bottom one and the left one in the above photo) developing in this photo.

Another photo enlarged below to see the developing cyathium.

A very young cyathium. Only glands and styles of the female flower could be seen. The male flowers and the ovary of the female flower are not protruded yet.

The back of the bracts.

Another photo enlarged below to see the male flower.

The structure of one male flower is reduced to one stamen that includes two A - anthers and a F - filament. G is in fact the pedicel of the male flower.

Another photo enlarged below to see more male flowers in the cyathium.

There are two long male flowers and three shorter male flowers in this cyathium. (There maybe two more male flowers here as you could see there are two broken stalks (the cross-section of the broken stalks are white) in the middle of the photo.)

Euphobia helioscopia 澤漆

Common name: Sun Spurge
Scientific name: Euphobia helioscopia 澤漆
Genus: Euphorbia 大戟屬
Family: Euphorbiaceae 大戟科, spurge family

Remarks:

Origin: Archaeophyte (established before 1500 AD.) It has a Eurasian Southern-temperate distribution.

Date:  1st April

All flower head heading to the same direction in this arable field. Does it represent that they track the sun as it moves across the sky?

A young single plant. No leaves at the base of the stem. A mature plant can reach up to 50 cm.

Leaves (green) are alternate. The yellowish green leaves-like structure on the top of the plants are in fact bracts of the inflorescence. All bracts are similar to leaves.

The leaf (the green one in the middle of the photo) is obovate and toothed.

The underside of the flower head showing the underside of the bracts as well as the bracts). 

enalarged below

Side view of the inflorescence. The inflorescence branched 5-rayed first, then 3-rayed at the next branch.

L: leaves. Bu: bracts at the base of the 5-rayed umbel (there are totally 5 Bu but the above photo can only show parts of them). Ba:  3 bracts of the (above) upper branch that is 3-rayed this time.

It could be seen clearly that the inflorescence branched 5-rayed first, then 3-rayed.

Another plant enlarged below to see the structure of the flowers

Cm: cyathium (the condensed inflorescence in Euphorbia) at the centre (middle) of the plant. C1-C5: the 5 cyathiums outsdie the middle cyathium (Cm), developed from the 5-rayed umbel at the first branch. Each cyathium has 4 rounded glands (G), 5 male flowers and 1 female flower. Each male flower could be seen as one stamen with anthers (A) at the top of it. (Only two stamens could be seen protruding from the middle cyathium at this stage.)  Female flower with the ovary (O) and 3-rayed style (S) could be seen in the above photo just start to protrude from the cyathium.  

Another plant enlarged below

For each cyathium, the female flower is much more elongated for this flower and bends downwards.

One more plant enlarged below to see the detailed structure of the flowers.

The bottom left corner of the original photo. Enlarged further below to see the detailed structure of the flower.

The central cyathium and the three surrounding cyathiums arising from the 3-rayed branch. Dark green, round glands, stamens and female flowers could be clearly seen here.

The top section of the original photo. Enlarged further below to see the detailed structure of the flower.

The bottom section of the original photo. Enlarged further below to see the detailed structure of the flower.

The ovary (at the middle bottom of the photo) is enlarged, maybe it is fruiting now.