Spotted Spurge (Euphorbia maculata)

Spotted Spurge (Euphorbia maculata), a North American spurge (also known as ‘Eyebane’) that is a pioneer species and common lawn weed in its native setting, and minor scourge of Australian doorsteps, cracked walkways and gravel drives.

First recorded in NSW from 1918, on a Queensland footpath in 1934, and in Victoria in 1937 at Yering. The details of this occurrence are sadly either not digitised or went unrecorded by the collector. The next Victorian record was only made in 1984, when the plant was recorded infesting a residential block in Elsternwick just off of the Sandringham line.

Principally a weed of suburban footpaths and domestic shingle, in Australia this spurge is rarely recorded outside of built areas. Inoffensive and often overlooked beside messier domestic weeds like Pellitory, the plant can be found widely throughout Melbourne’s inner suburbs, eeking out a hard-scrabble existence below our front gates and crumbling brick fences.