Texasweed (Caperonia Palustris)
Euphorbiaceae (Spurge Family)
Group: Dicot (Broadleaf)
Stout hairy annual herb, native of the Americas. It is commonly found in wet soils, rice fields, moist cultivated fields and roadsides.
Seedling cotyledons are smooth and coarsely pubescent on stems and petioles.
Leaves of mature plants are alternate, simple, lanceolate with pointed apex, and hairy. Leaf margins are serrated.
Stem is erect, simple or branching, moderately to densely hairy, up to 3 feet tall.
Flower or seed head is a cylindrical raceme with spiny burs. Spiny bur has one whorl of united flattened spines with one to several whorls of shorter bristles below. Spine tips turn purple with age.
Roots are fibrous.
Propagation is by seed.