Israel wildflowers: Crescent Spurge

Euphorbia falcata, Crescent Spurge, Sickle-leaved Spurge, Sickle Spurge,
Hebrew: חלבלוב מגלי, Arabic: حلبوب , حلبلوب

Scientific name:   Euphorbia falcata L.
Synony name:   Tithymalus falcatus (L.) Klotzsch & Garcke
Common name:   Crescent Spurge, Sickle-leaved Spurge, Sickle Spurge
Hebrew name:   חלבלוב מגלי
Arabic name:   حلبوب , حلبلوب
Plant Family:   Euphorbiaceae, חלבלוביים


Life form:   Therophyte, annual
Stems:   Up to 30cm tall; plentiful branching upright stalk; glabrous, glaucos
Leaves:   Alternate, entire
Inflorescence:   Cyathium; Cyme
Flowers:   Cyathia solitary, axillary or 1 or 2 terminal on short peduncles; green
Fruits / pods:   Capsule, greenish, ovoid, three-cell, c 2.5 mm long, deeply three-furrowed, glabrous and smooth; seeds oval, compressed, 1-2 mm long, with a spherical-conic appendage, and with several transversal grooves
Flowering Period:   March, April, May, June, July, August
Habitat:   Batha, Phrygana
Distribution:   Mediterranean Woodlands and Shrublands, Semi-steppe shrublands, Shrub-steppes
Chorotype:   Med – Irano-Turanian
Summer shedding:   Ephemeral


Derivation of the botanical name:

Euphorbia, Εὔφορβος, Euphorbus, after the Numidian physician Euphorbus, physician to Juba II, King of Numidia and Mauretania, about the end of the first century BCE.

falcata, sickle-shaped, falcate.
spurge from the Old French word espurgier (Latin expurgare), which means “to purge.” The sap of many herbaceous Euphorbia species have traditionally been used as a purgative, or laxative.

  • The standard author abbreviation L. is used to indicate Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778), a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, the father of modern taxonomy.
  • The standard author abbreviation Klotzsch is used to indicate Johann Friedrich Klotzsch (1805 – 1860), a German pharmacist and botanist.
  • The standard author abbreviation Garcke is used to indicate Christian August Friedrich Garcke (1819 – 1904), a German botanist.

Inflorescence definition Cyathium: a cup-shaped involucre bearing several minute stamens (male flowers) and a pistillate flower consisting of an ovary on a long stalk (pedicel). The rim of the cyathium often bears one or more nectar glands and petaloid appendages; this feature is present in every species of the genus Euphorbia but nowhere else in the plantkingdom.