Whanganui residents have brushes with 'toxic plant'

Caper spurge has a lot of milky latex sap. Wanganui Chronicle photograph by Bevan Conley.

Contact with a weed plant has severely irritated two rural Whanganui people and sent another to the hospital's emergency department in the middle of the night.

The weed is caper spurge, Euphorbia lathyris, a native of southern Europe, northern Africa and parts of Asia. Every part of it is poisonous and its milky sap causes allergic reactions.

Cranleigh Chainey was pulling out the bushy weed at his Erin Rd property and got some of its sap in his eyes. He sought help once, then had to return to Whanganui Hospital in the middle of the night for strong antihistamines, because his eyes were so painful.

Tom and Anna Dawson live on 1.2ha in Rapanui Rd. When grass on their property was mowed for hay the weed took over. Cattle and sheep wouldn't eat it.

Anna Dawson tried mowing it with a ride-on mower. There was no catcher and pieces of the plant flew around. She got an itchy, red rash all over her face, hands and any other part of her body that was exposed.

The couple tried glyphosate spray on the spurge, but it wasn't killed. There are other sprays that are more effective but they were expensive.

The plant is easy to pull out. In the end the Dawsons put on overalls and gloves and hand weeded two trailer loads from their paddocks, then burned it. They've seen the weed elsewhere in Rapanui Rd and in Waverley.

According to Wikipedia, the sap of caper spurge is especially hard on open cuts and on eyes, where it can cause blindness.

It quickly invades pasture because stock don't eat it, Horizons Regional Council biosecurity team leader Craig Davey said.

The Dawsons have seen the spurge listed as one of New Zealand's top 10 dangerous plants.

But it's just one of many that people can be allergic to, Davey said. Plants with milky sap, such as milkweed and moth plant, are actively toxic.