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Plant Profile

Sand-dune Spurge (Euphorbia cumulicola)

Euphorbia cumulicola.

Photo Credit: Naples Botanical Garden

Global Rank: G2 - Imperiled
Legal Status: N/A
Family: Euphorbiaceae
State: FL
Nature Serve ID: 133304
Lifeform: Forb/herb
Date Inducted in National Collection: 08/30/2021

Description:

Where is Sand-dune Spurge (Euphorbia cumulicola) located in the wild?

States & Provinces:

Sand-dune Spurge can be found in Florida

Which CPC Partners conserve Sand-dune Spurge (Euphorbia cumulicola)?

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden

Not Sponsored

Conservation Actions

Assigned 08/30/21

Naples Botanical Garden

Not Sponsored

Conservation Actions

Assigned 08/17/23

CPC's Plant Sponsorship Program provides long term stewardship of rare plants in our National Collection. We are so grateful for all our donors who have made the Plant Sponsorship Program so successful. We are in the process of acknowledging all our wonderful plant sponsorship donors on our website. This is a work in progress and will be updated regularly.

Conservation Actions

Jessica DeYoung

11/03/2022

In dry, sandy disturbed sites a quirky, unobtrusive plant sprawls across the landscape. It is sand-dune spurge (Euphorbia cumulicola) and is best identified by the flare of bright red on the low-growing plant’s leaf edge. We knew this state-endangered, Florida endemic plant is present at Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, but until recently, we didn’t know exactly where.

The Center for Plant Conservation’s Florida Plant Rescue (FLPR) initiative prompted us to go looking. Sand-dune spurge is considered globally rare and in need of conservation collection. Naples Botanical Garden conservationists, with partners from Rookery Bay, combed portions of the preserve, found the plant, and collected its seed for long-term storage.

Now that the population’s location has been confirmed, the species can be better monitored and managed. An additional bit of good news: Freshly familiar with the species, Garden conservationists discovered another population of sand-dune spurge in a neighboring preserve! Once they obtain the necessary permissions, they will collect seeds from this additional population, adding genetic diversity to seed bank holdings.

Center for Plant Conservation

08/30/2021

Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden plans to make a conservation seed collection of this species in 2021 as part of CPC’s inaugural season of the Florida Plant Rescue seed collections initiative.