EUPHORBIACEAE (SPURGE FAMILY) © 265 
and it is their rapid stooling after beheading that causes the swift 
appearance. Its acrid, milky juice is credited with causing “slob- 
bers” in grazing cattle and horses, and another symptom of Spurge 
poisoning is a wide-staring, glassy brightness of eyes, whence the 
common names. (Fig. 186.) 
It is a graceful plant, with slender, round, wiry, reddish stem, 
six inches to two feet or more in height, smooth or nearly so, fork- 
branched and spreading. Leaves nar- , 
rowly oblong, varying to ovate, or 
sometimes lance-shape and slightly 
curved, a half inch to an inch long, 
often with unequal sides, usually with 
red margins and a brownish red blotch 
in the center, finely and sharply 
toothed, with short petioles and tri- 
angular stipules. Flowers on peduncles 
longer than the petioles, the involucres 
narrowly obovoid, the four glands sub- 
tended by rounded, entire, white or 
ted appendages. Pods smooth, the 
seeds grayish black, long ovoid, obtusely 
four-angled, wrinkled and_tubercled 
between. They are nearly always 
found in clover and grass seed. 
Means of control 
: . Fic. 186. — Upright Spotted 
Burn over infested stubbles in order Spurge (Euphorbia  Preslii). 
to kill the stalks and destroy the seeds *? 
on the surface of the ground. On cultivated ground, per- 
sistently hoe-cut or hand-pull the weed before seed matures. 
Infested meadows should be put to some well-tilled crop, liberally 
fertilized, before reseeding heavily to grass or clover. 
HAIRY SPURGE 
Euphorbia hirstita, Wiegand 
Native. Annual. Propagates by seeds. 
Time of bloom: June to September. 
