Euphorbia glyptospermaEngelm.

ribseed sandmat

WFO wfo-0000962304 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Euphorbia glyptosperma, photographed by Elliott Gordon
fig. a Elliott Gordon, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-22 / obs. 199859663

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
263123
Filed as
Euphorbia glyptosperma Engelm.
Det. by
L. C. Wheeler 1939-01-01
Collected
F. J. Lindheimer
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 42 botanical countries

Regions where Euphorbia glyptosperma is native: Alberta, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Manitoba, Massachusetts, Mexico Northeast, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Nova Scotia, Oklahoma, Ontario, Oregon, Prince Edward I., Québec, Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming AlbertaArizonaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasLouisianaMaineManitobaMassachusettsMexico NortheastMichiganMinnesotaMissouriMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew BrunswickNew HampshireNew MexicoNew YorkNorth DakotaNova ScotiaOklahomaOntarioOregonPrince Edward I.QuébecSaskatchewanSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontWashingtonWisconsinWyoming
Native distribution of Euphorbia glyptosperma, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alberta ABT NORTHERN AMERICA
Arizona ARI
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Connecticut CNT
Idaho IDA
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Iowa IOW
Kansas KAN
Louisiana LOU
Maine MAI
Manitoba MAN
Massachusetts MAS
Mexico Northeast MXE
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
Missouri MSO
Montana MNT
Nebraska NEB
Nevada NEV
New Brunswick NBR
New Hampshire NWH
New Mexico NWM
New York NWY
North Dakota NDA
Nova Scotia NSC
Oklahoma OKL
Ontario ONT
Oregon ORE
Prince Edward I. PEI
Québec QUE
Saskatchewan SAS
South Dakota SDA
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX
Utah UTA
Vermont VER
Washington WAS
Wisconsin WIS
Wyoming WYO

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 83 in flower of 97 examined

Proportion of examined Euphorbia glyptosperma in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 0 0 too few examined
Feb 0 0 too few examined
Mar 0 0 too few examined
Apr 5 5 100% 57% to 100%
May 3 3 too few examined
Jun 10 12 83% 55% to 95%
Jul 17 19 89% 69% to 97%
Aug 15 19 79% 57% to 91%
Sep 18 20 90% 70% to 97%
Oct 12 14 86% 60% to 96%
Nov 2 4 too few examined
Dec 1 1 too few examined

Peak flowering in Apr. Each bar is the share of Euphorbia glyptosperma 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. 83 of 97 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 6 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 988 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -16.3 °C -6.5 °C 4.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.7 °C 29.6 °C 35.3 °C
Annual rainfall 262 mm 473 mm 989 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 27 mm 61 mm 199 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 988 research-grade observations of Euphorbia glyptosperma 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 5 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.

  • Chamaesyce glyptosperma (Engelm.) Small
  • Chamaesyce glyptosperma var. integrata Lunell
  • Chamaesyce glyptosperma var. pubescens Millsp.
  • Euphorbia glyptosperma var. pubescens Boiss.
  • Euphorbia glyptosperma var. tenerrima Engelm.

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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol CHGL13. public domain. 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.