Euphorbia illiricaLam.

WFO wfo-0000962668 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Euphorbia illirica, photographed by Ljaž
fig. a Ljaž, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-04 / obs. 155131524
Euphorbia illirica, photographed by Ljaž
fig. b Ljaž, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 144146300
Euphorbia illirica, photographed by Ljaž
fig. c Ljaž, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 141702829
Euphorbia illirica, photographed by Ljaž
fig. d Ljaž, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 141239421
Euphorbia illirica, photographed by timharris
fig. e timharris, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 131561421
Euphorbia illirica, photographed by timharris
fig. f timharris, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 131560537
Euphorbia illirica, photographed by Michael Andresek
fig. g Michael Andresek, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 170958480
Euphorbia illirica, photographed by Patrick Hacker
fig. h Patrick Hacker, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 132103117

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 17 botanical countries

Regions where Euphorbia illirica is native: Algeria, Albania, Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Czechia-Slovakia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Spain, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AlgeriaAlbaniaAustriaBelarusBulgariaCzechia-SlovakiaFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSpainTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine
Native distribution of Euphorbia illirica, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Belarus BLR
Bulgaria BUL
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
France FRA
Germany GER
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Spain SPA
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Algeria ALG 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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 211 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -6.3 °C -3.9 °C 3.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.2 °C 25.1 °C 27.1 °C
Annual rainfall 557 mm 650 mm 1,782 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 94 mm 107 mm 314 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 211 research-grade observations of Euphorbia illirica 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 33 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 cantabrica Rouy
  • Euphorbia carinthiaca Traunf. ex Boiss.
  • Euphorbia cechica Opiz
  • Euphorbia costata Schur
  • Euphorbia distincta Schur
  • Euphorbia distinguenda Schur
  • Euphorbia hirsuta Kit. ex Boiss.
  • Euphorbia klokovii Dubovik
  • Euphorbia mollis C.C.Gmel.
  • Euphorbia multiformis Schur
  • Euphorbia pilosa subsp. villosa (Waldst. & Kit. ex Willd.) Nyman
  • Euphorbia pilosa var. gymnocarpa Wimm. & Grab.
  • Euphorbia pilosa var. illirica (Lam.) Nyman
  • Euphorbia pilosa var. longifolia Rouy
  • Euphorbia pilosa var. reichenbachiana (Willk.) Boiss.
  • Euphorbia pilosa var. trigonocarpa (Fisch.) Boiss.
  • Euphorbia pilosa var. villosa (Waldst. & Kit. ex Willd.) Nyman
  • Euphorbia procera var. trichocarpa Koch
  • Euphorbia procera var. trichocarpa W.D.J.Koch
  • Euphorbia procera var. tuberculata W.D.J.Koch
  • Euphorbia pseudovillosa Klokov
  • Euphorbia reichenbachiana Willk.
  • Euphorbia subcordata (Klotzsch & Garcke) Schur
  • Euphorbia trigonocarpa Fisch.

and 9 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.