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Euphorbia hooveri
Also called Hoover's Sandmat
Hoover's spurge is a tiny annual that forms flat mats in seasonal vernal pools of California's Central Valley and is federally listed as threatened. It is a wild rarity rather than a garden plant, and it needs seasonal wet-dry cycles that are hard to reproduce.
Euphorbia hooveri is a species of euphorb known by the common names Hoover's sandmat and Hoover's spurge. It is endemic to California, where it grows in the rare vernal pools of the Central Valley. Due to the elimination of most of its habitat, it became a federally listed threatened species in 1997.
This is an annual herb forming flat mats of thin, hairless stems. The stems are ringed with pairs of tiny, minutely toothed round leaves, each gray-green leaf blade only a few millimeters wide. The inflorescence is a cyathium only two millimeters wide. The cyathium is made up of flat, white appendages surrounding a single minute female flower within a cluster of several male flowers. The female flower develops into a spherical fruit containing white seed. The seeds germinate once the pool evaporates with the arrival of summer.
Marble Canyon spurge · Abd Al Kuri Euphorbia · Euphorbia abdita · Euphorbia abdulghafooriana · Abram's Spurge · Desert Candle · Euphorbia acalyphoides · Greek Spiny Spurge · Euphorbia actinoclada · Pointed Sandmat · Euphorbia adenopoda · Miniature Saguaro
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Euphorbia hooveri by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
