FoI
Radium Weed
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Radium Weed
ative Photo: Gurcharan Singh
Common name: Radium Weed, petty spurge, cancer weed, Milkweed, Wart-weed, Radium plant
Botanical name: Euphorbia peplus    Family: Euphorbiaceae (Castor family)

Radium Weed is an annual plant growing to between 5-30 cm tall. They are commonly found small in size, growing as weeds of cultivation. Stems are smooth, hairless. Leaves are oval-pointed, 1-3 cm long, with a smooth margin. It has green flowers in three-rayed umbels. The glands, typical of the spurge family, are kidney-shaped with long thin horns. In India it is found in Jammu and Kashmir and Meghalaya.
Medicinal uses: The milky latex sap is toxic, and used as a therapeutic agent for the removal of warts and sunspots on the skin. Recent work also suggests that it may also be effective in treating superficial basal cell carcinomas.

Identification credit: Gurcharan Singh
Photographed in Srinagar, Kashmir.
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