Family: Euphorbiaceae, Spurge
Genus: Euphorbia

Description
General: perennial with milky juice and heavy rootstocks,
20-90 cm tall, hairless and waxy-coated to sparsely short-
hairy above. Stems erect, simple below but freely and
umbellately branched above.
Leaves: alternate, the lowest ones scalelike, the main
stem leaves oblong to linear-oblanceolate, entire, 2-6 cm
long, 3-8 mm broad, nearly or quite stalkless.
Flowers: greenish-yellow, naked, lacking petals and
sepals, borne in small clusters inside small involucres 2-3
mm long bearing 4 glands alternate with short, spreading
horns, these inside a pair of floral leaves that are broadly
heart-shaped to ovate, 12-16 mm long. These small
clusters on long stalks in large umbel-clusters. The male
flowers many, included in the involucre, each represented
by a single stamen, female flower single and terminal,
often protruding from the involucre, 3-celled.
Flowering time: May-June.
Fruits: capsules, inconspicuously warty to nearly
smooth, round, about 4 mm wide. Seeds mostly 1.5-2
mm long, brownish, smooth.

Distribution
Moist, disturbed, cultivated or waste ground, in many parts
of MT. from A bad Eurasian weed now well established in
many parts of the U.S.

Toxic plant, see below.