A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Caper Spurge, Euphorbia lathyris. But my favourite spurge (Euphorbia) has to be the Wood Spurge, Euphorbia amygdaloides.

Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae (with plum blossom and a carpet of Black Peppermint) in Grapes Hill Community Garden.

The Wood Spurge is a lovely, tough and adaptable garden plant that will grow in dry shade and also a British native, where it grows in woodlands especially in the south of England and Wales (see map). The plant spreads by underground runners and eventually the evergreen leaves will form a low weed-smothering carpet over the ground.

It is looking lovely at the moment in Grapes Hill Community Garden and in our back garden and we have just planted it at The Belvedere Centre. The lime green bracts almost glow in a dark, shady spot or on a dull day, and they will continue to provide interest until early summer.

The usual garden form is Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae, also known as Mrs Robb’s Bonnet. Thanks to Richard Mabey’s superb “Flora Britannica” (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1996) I know that Mrs Mary Anne Robb was a Victorian adventurer, who discovered this form of Wood Spurge while attending a wedding in Istanbul in 1891. The resourceful woman put the specimen in her hat box to transport it home. Her great-grandson, Alastair Robb, and his wife are now renovating the garden at Cothay Manor in Somerset, where they live.

There is also an attracive form of the plant with purple foliage, Euphorbia amygdaloides var. ‘Purpurea’.