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Synonym: Mole plant.
Flowers: June- July.
Many members of the
Spurge family are poisonous, or irritant in various degrees. They
are herbs or small shrubs often containing a milky latex. The
flowers have neither sepals, nor petals and are borne in clusters.
The male flowers have a single stamen and the females have an
ovary and three styles. These are arranged in a head with 1
central female flowers surrounded by several males.
Caper Spurge is a
hairless, bluish-green biennial plant (Meaning: It has a 2-year
lifecycle whereby it germinates the first year and blooms and sets
seeds the next) with a height of 1 - 1.5 metres.
The un-stalked leaves grow opposite each other on the stem and are
linear to oblong in shape with un-toothed edges. The fruit is a
3-lobed capsule of 1.3 - 2 cm with brown or grey seeds.
These very poisonous fruits have sometimes been mistaken for Capparis
spinosa, the true Caper, which has edible flower-buds.
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Caper Spurge is native to Central
and Southern Europe and maybe native to Sussex, but has widely
naturalised in Western Europe. It can be found locally
established in some places in woodlands, disturbed soil and as a
garden weed. It is very casual above the South of Scotland.
As so often Mrs.
Grieve has some interesting information for us on this plant,
including The use of Spurge Laurel by beggars to produce sores:
"Has a milky juice of an acrid nature. Its seeds yield an
abundance of fine clear oil called oil of Euphorbia; this is
obtained by expression or by the action of alcohol or ether, and
is colourless, inodorous, and almost insipid; it rapidly becomes
rancid, and acquires a dangerous acrimony. The oil is a very
violent poison, producing violent purgation and having an
irritating effect upon the mucous membrane of the intestinal
canal, and especially on the larger intestines; the oil
resembles croton oil. In doses of 5 drops it is said to be less
acrid and irritating than croton oil; it must be recently
extracted. The seeds to the number of twelve or fifteen
are used by country people in France as a purgative.
The root of the plant is equally purgative and emetic; the
leaves are vesicant and are used by beggars to produce ulcers by
which to excite pity; the juice is depilatory; the seeds contain
aesculin in the free state."
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