Euphorbia hirsutaL.

WFO wfo-0000962564 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Euphorbia hirsuta, photographed by Anton Popovich
fig. a Anton Popovich, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-09-13 / obs. 183440723
Euphorbia hirsuta, photographed by Duarte Frade
fig. b Duarte Frade, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 61138809
Euphorbia hirsuta, photographed by Anton Popovich
fig. c Anton Popovich, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 183440276

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.

Native range 25 botanical countries

Regions where Euphorbia hirsuta is native: Algeria, Canary Is., Morocco, Tunisia, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Iraq, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Baleares, Corse, France, Greece, Italy, Kriti, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaMoroccoTunisiaCyprusEast Aegean Is.IraqLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaCorseFranceGreeceItalyKritiNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalSiciliaSpainTürkiye-in-Europe Canary Is.BalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Euphorbia hirsuta, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Baleares BAL
Corse COR
France FRA
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iraq IRQ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Canary Is. CNY
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN

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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 219 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 0.7 °C 6.9 °C 10.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 21.6 °C 27.1 °C 33.5 °C
Annual rainfall 385 mm 678 mm 1,365 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 15 mm 56 mm 147 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 219 research-grade observations of Euphorbia hirsuta 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.

Also published as 39 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.

  • Euphorbia bonae Mutel
  • Euphorbia crispata Hornem.
  • Euphorbia gussoneana Lojac.
  • Euphorbia hirsuta f. crispata (Willd. ex Hornem.) Oudejans
  • Euphorbia hirsuta f. glabrescens (St.-Lag.) Oudejans
  • Euphorbia hirsuta f. integrifolia (Deysson) Oudejans
  • Euphorbia hirsuta f. laevis (Merino) Oudejans
  • Euphorbia hirsuta f. serrata (Lojac.) Oudejans
  • Euphorbia hirsuta f. serrulatifolia (Deysson) Oudejans
  • Euphorbia hirsuta f. subglabra (Godr.) Oudejans
  • Euphorbia hirsuta var. integrifolia (Deysson) Oudejans
  • Euphorbia hirsuta var. leucotricha (Boiss.) Oudejans
  • Euphorbia hirsuta var. serrulatifolia (Deysson) Oudejans
  • Euphorbia hirsuta var. subglabra (Godr.) Nebot, De la Torre, Mateo & Alcaraz
  • Euphorbia leucotricha Boiss.
  • Euphorbia platyphyllos subsp. pubescens (Vahl) Knoche
  • Euphorbia platyphyllos var. flavopurpurea Willk.
  • Euphorbia pubescens Vahl
  • Euphorbia pubescens f. subglabra (Godr. & Gren.) O.Bolòs & Vigo
  • Euphorbia pubescens subvar. integrifolia Deysson
  • Euphorbia pubescens subvar. serrulatifolia Deysson
  • Euphorbia pubescens var. crispata (Willd. ex Hornem.) Boiss.
  • Euphorbia pubescens var. erioclada Sart. ex Nyman
  • Euphorbia pubescens var. genuina Godr.

and 15 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. 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.