Euphorbia esulaL.

leafy spurge

WFO wfo-0000961974 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Euphorbia esula, photographed by Petr Harant
fig. a Petr Harant, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-04 / obs. 204187404

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
785250
Filed as
Euphorbia esula L.
Det. by
M. H. Mayfield 1998-01-01
Collected
J. D. Dwyer 1941-06-07
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 56 botanical countries

Regions where Euphorbia esula is native: Azores, Afghanistan, Altay, Amur, Buryatiya, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Chita, Inner Mongolia, Iran, Irkutsk, Kamchatka, Kazakhstan, Khabarovsk, Kirgizstan, Korea, Krasnoyarsk, Lebanon-Syria, Manchuria, Mongolia, North Caucasus, Primorye, Qinghai, Sakhalin, Tadzhikistan, Transcaucasus, Turkmenistan, Tuva, Uzbekistan, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Yakutiya, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, East European Russia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, South European Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine AfghanistanAltayAmurBuryatiyaChina North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastChitaInner MongoliaIranIrkutskKamchatkaKazakhstanKhabarovskKirgizstanKrasnoyarskLebanon-SyriaManchuriaMongoliaNorth CaucasusPrimoryeQinghaiSakhalinTadzhikistanTranscaucasusTurkmenistanTuvaUzbekistanWest SiberiaXinjiangYakutiyaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaEast European RussiaFranceGermanyHungaryItalyNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalSouth European RussiaSpainSwitzerlandUkraine AzoresKorea
Native distribution of Euphorbia esula, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
Altay ALT
Amur AMU
Buryatiya BRY
China North-Central CHN
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Chita CTA
Inner Mongolia CHI
Iran IRN
Irkutsk IRK
Kamchatka KAM
Kazakhstan KAZ
Khabarovsk KHA
Kirgizstan KGZ
Korea KOR
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Lebanon-Syria LBS
Manchuria CHM
Mongolia MON
North Caucasus NCS
Primorye PRM
Qinghai CHQ
Sakhalin SAK
Tadzhikistan TZK
Transcaucasus TCS
Turkmenistan TKM
Tuva TVA
Uzbekistan UZB
West Siberia WSB
Xinjiang CHX
Yakutiya YAK
Austria AUT EUROPE
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
East European Russia RUE
France FRA
Germany GER
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR
Azores AZO AFRICA

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 167 in flower of 228 examined

Proportion of examined Euphorbia esula in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 0 0 too few examined
Feb 0 0 too few examined
Mar 3 5 60% 23% to 88%
Apr 51 57 89% 79% to 95%
May 74 83 89% 81% to 94%
Jun 25 34 74% 57% to 85%
Jul 5 10 50% 24% to 76%
Aug 8 12 67% 39% to 86%
Sep 1 2 too few examined
Oct 0 6 0% 0% to 39%
Nov 0 19 0% 0% to 17%
Dec 0 0 too few examined

Peak flowering in Apr. Each bar is the share of Euphorbia esula observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 167 of 228 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 4 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 2,025 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -14.2 °C -4.0 °C 0.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 21.2 °C 24.2 °C 30.1 °C
Annual rainfall 423 mm 615 mm 906 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 11 mm 103 mm 180 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 2,025 research-grade observations of Euphorbia esula that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 123 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Esula angustifolia Haw.
  • Esula ararica (Jord.) Fourr.
  • Esula dalechampii Haw.
  • Esula major Garsault
  • Esula pseudocyparissias (Jord.) Fourr.
  • Esula riparia (Jord.) Fourr.
  • Esula salicetorum (Jord.) Fourr.
  • Esula vulgaris Fourr.
  • Euphorbia acuta Bellardi ex Colla
  • Euphorbia androsaemifolia Willd.
  • Euphorbia androsaemifolia subsp. salicetorum (Jord.) Nyman
  • Euphorbia angustifolia (Haw.) Steud.
  • Euphorbia ararica Jord.
  • Euphorbia borodinii Sambuk
  • Euphorbia chankoana Vorosch.
  • Euphorbia croizatii (Hurus.) Kitag.
  • Euphorbia discolor Ledeb.
  • Euphorbia discolor f. gracilis Popov
  • Euphorbia discolor var. glabra Loschk. & Polozhij
  • Euphorbia discolor var. pilosa Loschk. & Polozhij
  • Euphorbia esula f. esulifolia (Thell.) Kuzmanov
  • Euphorbia esula f. octoradiata (H.Lév. & Vaniot) M.Kim
  • Euphorbia esula prol. paludosa Rouy
  • Euphorbia esula subsp. aragonensis Nyman

and 99 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.