Nile Valley North of Nubia (Location: Delta), Mareotic Sector, North Sinai, Isthmic Desert, Galala Desert, Mountainous Southern Sinai.
Macaronesia, Europe, North Africa, Sinai, East Mediterranean Region, Iraq, Arabia.
Waste Ground, Roadsides.
Annual.
Height: 10-40 cm.
Mercurialis annua is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family Euphorbiaceae known by the common name annual mercury or (rarely) French mercury.[1] It is native to Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East[2][3] but it is known on many other continents as an introduced species.
This is an annual herb growing 10 to 70 centimeters tall with oppositely arranged, stipulate oval leaves each a few centimeters long. The male flowers are borne in spikelike clusters sprouting from leaf axils, and female flowers grow at leaf axils in clusters of 2 or 3. The fruit is a bristly schizocarp 2 or 3 millimeters wide containing shiny, pitted seeds.[4][5]
The species is monoecious or androdioecious.[6]
A plant of Mercurialis annua can produce up to 135 million pollen grains.
Isorhamnetin-3-rutinoside-4′-glucoside, rutin, narcissin (Isorhamnetin 3-rutinoside), quercetin-3-(2G-glucosyl)-rutinoside and isorhamnetin-3-rutinoside-7-glucoside can be isolated from the methanolic extract of M. annua.[7] Historically, the First Nations people of eastern Canada used the juices of the plant as a balm for wounds.[8]
Mercurialis annua grows in many types of open habitat, including disturbed areas, from sea level to 1400 m.[4][5]
Mercurialis annua is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family Euphorbiaceae known by the common name annual mercury or (rarely) French mercury. It is native to Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East but it is known on many other continents as an introduced species.
