PlantKey Open ecological atlas
Planner
Home / Browse / Euphorbia / Sea Spurge
iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Euphorbiaceae family

Sea Spurge Euphorbia paralias

Sea Spurge is an introduced perennial herb, found in the lower 48 states. It grows to 1.1 ft.

More about this plant

Euphorbia paralias, the sea spurge, is a species of flowering plant in the family Euphorbiaceae, native to Europe, northern Africa and western Asia. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 8 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Height
1.1 ft
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Broadleaf
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~7 caterpillar species

Euphorbia supports ~7 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a modest genus.

Recorded feeding on Euphorbia in North America, including:

Chamaesphecia empiformis · clearwing moth Chamaesphecia tenthrediniformis · clearwing moth Cydia deshaisiana · Jumping Bean Moth Danaus plexippus · Monarch Episimus argutana · leafroller moth Erinnyis ello · Ello Sphinx
+ 8 more species →
Erinnyis obscura · Obscure Sphinx Ethelgoda texanana · leafroller moth Eudryas unio · Pearly Wood-Nymph Hyles euphorbiae · Spurge Hawk-Moth Hypercompe scribonia · Giant Leopard Moth Lobesia euphorbiana · leafroller moth Lobocleta perirrorata · geometer (inchworm) moth Lobocleta plemyraria · Straight-Lined Wave Moth
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
✦ Bees specialist-bee host · 18 bee visitors

Specialist native bees depend on it.

Some native bees are pollen specialists (oligolectic) — they raise young only on pollen from particular plant genera. Euphorbia is a recorded specialist-bee host, so losing it can mean losing the bee that relies on it.

Xerces pollinator conservation →

18 native & managed bee species are documented visiting Sea Spurge — the 12 most-recorded:

Halictus gemmeus · sweat bee Hylaeus annularis · masked bee Hylaeus taeniolatus · masked bee Andrena bicolor · mining bee Andrena chrysosceles · mining bee Andrena flavipes · Mining Bee
+ 6 more bees →
Andrena haemorrhoa · Early Mining Bee Andrena nitida · mining bee Andrena semilaevis · mining bee Andrena subopaca · mining bee Andrena synadelpha · mining bee Andrena trimmerana · mining bee
Specialist hosts from Smith et al. 2024. Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI →
Wildlife & visitors 1 nectaring

Open records of who else uses Sea Spurge — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

1 adult butterfly & moth species is recorded nectaring at its flowers:

Hyles euphorbiae · Spurge Hawk-Moth
Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (2) Methods & honest limits
Leaf build Direct fact

We read each species’ measured specific leaf area (leaf area per unit dry weight) from the Global Spectrum dataset and band it: thin & fast (high SLA), medium, or thick & tough (low SLA). The global median is about 10 mm²/mg.

Honest limits: A species-mean from pooled measurements — individual plants vary with light and site. A broad strategy signal, not a precise per-plant figure.

Díaz, S. et al. (2022) The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset. Scientific Data 9:755.
Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (21) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)
[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[08] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts · Smith et al. 2024 (CC BY)
[11] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[12] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[13] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[14] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[19] Flower-visitor value (derived) — Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI
[20] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[21] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX 
Loading…