Yesterday, Herb and I went to the north end of Elliot Street to look for some plants that Herb's wife, Dorothy, had remembered at the roadside; plants that were very "sticky". Herb recognized the area when we came to it, on Elliot Street near Broadview.

I saw at once that they are Myrtle Spurge. Before I could caution him, Herb bent down and pulled one of the plants. Immediately his hand was splashed with the irritant thick, white sap! Hopefully, it hasn't caused him too much discomfort. 

The last picture is of a rock garden that is adjacent to Wildhorse Drive, underneath the old, now decommissioned (?), hydroelectric line to Brenda Mines. It looks like a miniature park.

We continued our drive up Elliot and all of the streets which branch off it--most of them developed and built on in the last several years. The pictures attached to this message will give you an idea of what we found.

Myrtle Spurge is everywhere, especially on the newly developed properties! 

It seems that people see this roadside plant, free for the taking, and decide to spruce up their rock gardens with what really is an attractive succulent plant.

 It is now in bloom, so it is easy to spot, with its distinctive masses of greenish-yellow colour. But you can see from these pictures, that it is very aggressive, spreading by seeds which may be thrown up to 4 metres when the ripe pods break.

But in new developments, such as we visited yesterday, people told us that they had planted it at their new home sites without knowing what it was but just thought it attractive.

If our government weed control people hope to control this plant, there is no time to waste. This year's crop will soon be spraying seed over the area.

On Thursday, Martha and I visited the two largest plant nurseries in this area, Byland's and Dogwood Nurseries. Sales people at both told us that they did not stock Myrtle Spurge, in fact, the people we spoke to did not know the plant!

I would like to see someone place an illustrated "Do You Know This Plant" article in the local newspapers, someone with more botanical knowledge than me, as I expect that such an article will stir up a lot of interest and probably questions that I would not be able to answer. For my part, I will just continue to document its occurrence locally. In two hours yesterday, we covered only a tiny bit of West Kelowna.