Image of shining spurge

Description:

Slo.: bleei mleek - Habitat: Grassland, bottom of an intermittent lake, regularly flooded during rainy periods, flat terrain, full sun, moist ground; elevation 545 m (1.790 feet); average precipitations ~ 1.600-1.800 mm/year, average temperature 8-10 deg C, alpine phytogeographical region. Substratum: soil.Place: Cerknica intermittent lake, south of village Otok, Notranjska, Slovenia EC.Comment: Euphorbia lucida is our tallest and the most exciting member of this large and interesting genus. It can grow up to 1.5 m high. Eventually only Euphorbia wulfenii growing only along Adriatic Sea shore can grow to comparable size. All Euphorbia species (about 1.600 are known!) extrude milky latex or resin when damaged and hence are easy to recognize. To tell apart species of this genus is much more demanding task. In Slovenia about 40 species are growing. Euphorbia lucida is known in Slovenia almost only from the intermittent Cerknica Lake, which is a world-famous karst natural monument included in the European Network of Special Protected Areas, the Natura 2000 sites. The plant is rare, highly endangered and protected. It is absent from northeast Italy west of Slovenia and extremely rare in Austria north of us, also known from a very limited region of Pannonia plane. Pravilnik o uvrstitvi ogroenih rastlinskih in ivalskih vrst v rdei seznam, Uradni list RS, t. 82/2002 (Regulation of enlisting of endangered plant and animal species onto Red List, Official Gazette of Republic Slovenia, no. 82/2002) (2002). Enlisted in the Slovene Red List of rare and endangered species, marked by 'E' representing a critically endangered species.Ref.:(1) M.A. Fischer, W. Adler, K. Oswald, Exkursionsflora fr sterreich, Liechtenstein und Sdtirol, LO Landesmuseen, Linz, Austria (2005), p 462.(2) A. Martini et all., Mala Flora Slovenije (Flora of Slovenia - Key) (in Slovenian), Tehnina Zaloba Slovenije (2007), p 374. (3) L. Pintar, A. Selikar, Cvetje Slovenske Deele - Florula Slovenica, Zaloba Narava d.o.o. (2015) (in Slovenian), p 128.(4) J. Stergarek, Cvet skrivnosti, Vodnik po rastlinskem svetu Cerknikega jezera in okolice 2009, p67.