Wood Spurge
cultivars and
seedlings
Euphorbia amygdaloides
‘Purpurea’
An accommodating native spurge for shade.
Wood spurge is perfect for growing in shady areas, under trees or in north facing borders, where it will light up the garden with its lime-yellow flowers through spring and summer. Rising between 40 and 70cm, it forms loose clumps of upward-arching stems with impressive whorled foliage, that associates perfectly with woodland perennials and ferns.
Why I love it
Over the years, I have come to really admire the characteristics of wood spurge and love having it inhabit my garden. Although it is a UK native, in cultivation only the cultivar E. amygdaloides ‘Purpurea’ is typically offered: an eye catching, but unreliable plant. All of the nursery grown ‘Purpurea’ I have grown have fussed, grown weakly and died in just a couple of years.
Fortunately, ‘Purpurea’ gently self-seeds, producing intermediate genetic forms with purple, dark-green, or blue-green foliage. These offspring have been much better adapted to my garden and are more robust. Indeed they have become a welcome and important component of the naturalistic tapestry in my woodland garden — especially in winter, when their evergreen spires stand out prominently against the dark earth and fallen leaves.
Although relatively short lived (3-4 years), their propensity to readily (but not aggressively) self-seed, means I always have good looking clumps at various stages of maturity. Unwanted seedlings are easy to remove, and the ones I keep are often in locations that I couldn’t plant them myself.
Genetic and Seasonal Variations
In my garden wood spurge, shows considerable variation in its characteristics throughout the year, as well as from year-to-year and between seedlings. These variations are relatively subtle and interesting, never jarring. I think the best way to show this is through photos, so here is a gallery showing various seedlings throughout the season:
Euphorbia Amygdaloides GALLERY 1
Foliage of a purple seedling with silvery Arum italicum ‘Pictum’
A self-sown seedling – dark copper-green foliage, growing amongst hardy cyclamen, with snowdrops, ferns and red-berries of butchers broom.
Self-sown purple wood spurge, with dark foliage and red spring shoots
A nearby self-sown seedling. Similar but different: taller and with greener foliage — March
Close-up of a stem immediately prior to flowering.
Inflorescence — The ‘flowers’ start off close to the stems.
Flower stems elongate and divide: new flowers emerge in pairs from the centre of earlier flowers. (Here with forget-me-nots!)
A young wood spurge seedling flowering with sweet woodruff and forget-me-nots
Top-down view, showing fully expanded, branched inflorescence. (The white flower is Saxifrage rotundifolia)
Flowering has finished, but bracts persist and gradually turn copper then brown.
All flowering stems have been cut back, close to the base, leaving only new shoots which will flower next year.
Heathy evergreen stems in midwinter. This seedling has purple foliage and bright red stems.
Origins
Euphorbia amygdaloides (Wood spurge), is a widespread wildflower found in open woodland, hedgerows and shady banks in the southern UK, Europe, Balkans and North Africa. Across its range, it shows considerable variation in form, partly due to the ease with which it hybridises with other euphorbia species. In the wild, forms are found that spread mainly by underground runners, while others are predominately clump forming.
In my experience, E. amygdaloides ‘Purpurea’ and its seedlings do not run at the root. Instead, they form loose clumps of stems, up to 60cm across.
Growth
In my garden, wood spurge seedlings pop up with reassuring regularity and are easy to identify. The are good partners to many woodland plants. Their long stems wind easily between adjacent plants, never providing too much competition. With leaves only on the upper half of the stems, they usually hold their foliage above smaller plants, and are generally open enough not to cast excessive shade.
Foliage
The green to blue-green leaves are narrow and pointed with a central rib, sometimes with a maroon back. They are arranged in whorls around upright red-tinged stems. Foliage becomes overlayed with other tones as the season progresses. Towards the tips of the stems the leaves are yellow-green, backed with purple, but close to flowering time they become purple-red, producing an effect reminiscent of Pieris ‘Forest Flame’.
Flowers
The flowering shoots of wood spurge unfurl in March with colourful foliage and stems (often purple-red). The tight flower buds emerge a deep chartreuse that contrasts dramatically with the red stems. Gradually the flower heads expand branching repeatedly, each time with a pair of stalks arising from the middle of a disc like bract (cyme), finally terminating in pairs of ‘flowers-in-flowers’:
As noted earlier, these structures are not true flowers, but cymes, and the ‘flower-head’ is technically a compound cyme. These complex compound umbels are often over 15cm (6in) across. At their fullest, they create a frothy green mass that works well alongside many other woodland plants.
Flower Color: Chartreuse-green flowers
Flower Structure: Complex open sprays of flowers
Flowering Period: March to July, with peak blooming in late spring (April-May)
Because the inflorescence of wood spurge is mainly composed of bracts (rather than petals) it remains effective for many months, although by mid-summer it may begin to look less appealing. Flowering shoots can be cut back close to the base, allowing new shoots to take their place.
Euphorbia Amygdaloides GALLERY 2
Wood spurge
Gallery ◀▶
Practical Tips
HOW TO GROW
Wood Spurge
POSITION
Wood spurge grows best in the dappled shade of trees, but can tolerate more sun or deeper shade. It prefers a moist (not waterlogged) soil, but can tolerate drought better than most woodland plants. It benefits from an organic mulch especially nursery-bought plants which can be harder to establish than self-sown seedlings.
MAINTENANCE
This is one of the easiest plants to live with needing minimal maintenance. Cut back flowered stems close to their base in late summer or autumn, leaving new foliage shoots to replace them. Wear gloves when handling. to avoid contact with the white latex which is irritant to skin and eyes. Remove unwanted seedlings at any stage.
Planting Ideas
Wood spurge is a great companion plant for any woodland scheme. Subtle rather than striking, it adds diversity to a planting without fighting for attention. The scene below illustrates this, with the wood spurge being easy to overlook at first…
▲ Wood spurge with primrose (Primula veris) and Anemone blanda in spring (March)
▼ A more dominant position, in front of Hart’s tongue fern (Asplenium scolopendrium) and oriental hellebores. The mottled silver leaves are Arum italicum ‘var italicum‘Pictum’ – a bit of a weed tbh.
Contrasting colours
The lime-chartreuse green of the woodland spurge contrasts well with blue flowers such as forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica), English Bluebells (Hyacinthoides-non-scripta), Columbine (Aquilegia ‘Blue Star’), Omphalodes cappadocica ‘Cherry Ingram’, or lungwort (Pulmonaria ‘Blue ensign’).
▲ Wood spurge with Columbine (Aquilegia ‘Blue Star’) — May
▼ Bluebells pop against a background of golden-green spurge flowers — May
UP Next
PAGE 6
Robb’s Spurge »
So very useful, inormative, inspiring. Unable to express my enthusiasm und my gratitute in words. The WORLD’s best garden blog, ever!
Thank you so much Monica! I’ve been working on this article on and off for over a year. It took a big push over the last few weeks to get it finished, so I’m grateful for your appreciation.