Species
⟳ +
Euphorbia lathyris, Wilkes County, NC, USA (c) Douglas Goldman, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) · observed growing wild · 2016-05-29

Euphorbia lathyris L.

Caper Spurge, Caper Spurge (EN); Lechetrezna murganera (ES), Kreuzblättrige Wolfsmilch (DE); Moleplant, Moleplant

No habitat climate 50 photographs Cactus or succulent
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Euphorbia lathyris, the caper spurge or paper spurge, is a species of spurge native to Asia in western China, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan and introduced elsewhere.

Text from Wikipedia, “Euphorbia lathyris”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Euphorbia

Euphorbia is a large and diverse genus of flowering plants, commonly called spurge, in the family Euphorbiaceae.

Text from Wikipedia, “Euphorbia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Euphorbiaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Kirgizistan, Xinjiang, Pakistan
Wild records
none in range

Also known as Epurga lathyris (L.) Fourr.; Euphorbia decussata Salisb.; Euphorbia lathyris var. minor Hook. & Arn.; Euphorbia lathyrus L.; Euphorbia spongiosa Ledeb. and 7 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Euphorbia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum, and no habitat climate is derived yet; no cold floor is given, and no prose comes from the table.

Nothing derived: no habitat climate for this species, and the archetype table has no figure for its genus or family.

Climate across the habitat

No habitat climate can be derived: No georeferenced record inside the range.

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP.
No openly licensed record to show inside the range.
NativeKirgizistan, Xinjiang, Pakistan· introduced: Great Britain, Ireland, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, France, Portugal, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Morocco, Azores, Canary Is., Ethiopia, Transcaucasus, China South-Central, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, China North-Central, Qinghai, China Southeast, Tibet, East Himalaya, West Himalaya, Vietnam, Tasmania, New Zealand North, New Zealand South, British Columbia, Ontario, Québec, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil South, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Chile Central, Juan Fernández Is., Uruguay
Kew's description“biennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedNo georeferenced records inside the stated native range.

Photographs

Euphorbia lathyrisEuphorbia lathyrisEuphorbia lathyrisEuphorbia lathyrisEuphorbia lathyrisEuphorbia lathyrisEuphorbia lathyrisEuphorbia lathyris

Photographs: (c) Douglas Goldman, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (8).

Photographs: iNaturalist and GBIF media did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Euphorbia lathyris, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Mushroom Tyrosinase Inhibitory Activity of Esculetin Isolated from Seeds of Euphorbia lathyris L.
Yukimitsu Masamoto, Hideya Ando, Yoshiyuki Murata, Yasuaki Shimoishi (2003) · Bioscience Biotechnology and Biochemistry
Production and selected fuel properties of biodiesel from promising non-edible oils: Euphorbia lathyris L., Sapium sebiferum L. and Jatropha curcas L.
Rui Wang, Milford A. Hanna, Wan-Wei Zhou, Pinaki S. Bhadury (2010) · Bioresource Technology
Self assembly of epicuticular waxes on living plant surfaces imaged by atomic force microscopy (AFM)
Kerstin Koch (2004) · Journal of Experimental Botany
Anticancer Drugs from Traditional Toxic Chinese Medicines
Shuli Man, Wenyuan Gao, Changlong Wei, Changxiao Liu (2012) · Phytotherapy Research
Combined effect of the extracts from Croton tiglium, Euphorbia lathyris or Euphorbia tirucalli and n-butyrate on Epstein-Barr virus expression in human lymphoblastoid P3HR-1 and Raji cells
Yôhei Itô, Michiko Kawanishi, Takashi Harayama, Sigetoshi Takabayashi (1981) · Cancer Letters
Petroleum Plantations for Fuel and Materials
Melvin Calvin (1979) · BioScience
Oxidation and cyclization of casbene in the biosynthesis of Euphorbia factors from mature seeds of Euphorbia lathyris L.
Dan Luo, Roberta Callari, Britta Hamberger, Sileshi Gizachew Wubshet (2016) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Effect of ZnO nanoparticles concentration as additives to the epoxidized Euphorbia Lathyris oil and their tribological characterization
Yashvir Singh, Nishant Kumar Singh, Abhishek Sharma, Amneesh Singla (2020) · Fuel
An Expeditious Procedure for the Isolation of Ingenol from the Seeds of Euphorbia lathyris
Giovanni Appendino, Gian Cesare Tron, Giancarlo Cravotto, Giovanni Palmisano (1998) · Journal of Natural Products
Lathyrane diterpenes from Euphorbia lathyris as modulators of multidrug resistance and their crystal structures
Wei Jiao, Weiwei Dong, Zhefeng Li, Mei‐Cai Deng (2009) · Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry
Lathyrane-type diterpenoids from the seeds of Euphorbia lathyris
Jin Lu, Guoyu Li, Jian Huang, Cui Zhang (2014) · Phytochemistry
Oils and Rubber from Arid Land Plants
Jack D. Johnson, C. Wiley Hinman (1980) · Science

Other Euphorbia 29 in the reference

Euphorbia amygdaloides Wood Spurge Euphorbia antisyphilitica candelilla Euphorbia bracteata Euphorbiaceae Euphorbia characias Albanian spurge Euphorbia corollata American spurge Euphorbia cotinifolia Caribbean copperplant Euphorbia cyparissias Cypress Spurge Euphorbia decepta Sputnik Euphorbia epithymoides Cushion spurge Euphorbia geroldii Thornless Crown of Thorns Euphorbia graminea Grassleaf Spurge Euphorbia heterophylla Japanese poinsettia all 30 ›

History & registers

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist
Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence search API
climate nothing to report
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media did not answercarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: api.gbif.org not asked: offline re-derivation
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 9 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.