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Snow on the Mountain?

9 years ago

I was told this is the name of this plant, but if I google it, it is described as a low ground cover that you mow over after it blooms. Says it will be back to ankle high very soon. I'm not sure this plant has been correctly identified. The plant in the pictures is about 3 feet tall. I snapped this at the Cleveland County Master Gardens. Can someone help me, please?

Comments (11)

  • 9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I think the picture didn't come through. At least I don't see any picture.
    My folks had Snow on the Mountain, when I was a kid. It grew nearly three feet tall. As I recall it had green leaves edged with white/yellow. My Mom used it as greenery in her bouquets.

    One time she made a bouquet for a friend in the hospital, using Snow on the Mountain for greenery. When she returned to see her friend, the bouquet was no longer in the room. When Mom asked about it, the nurses showed her that they had it at the nurses station. They loved it! Turns out that the Snow on the Mountain had seed pods and the seed pods burst and hurl seeds as far as 10' when they are mature. The bouquet had been bombarding our friend, in bed, from the window sill!

    George

    Here's a link with some pictures:

    USDA Profile: Snow on the Mountain

  • 9 years ago

    The one that grows down here on our property in southern OK is closely related to Snow on the Mountain, but it is called Snow on the Prairie. I expect both plants are found in various parts of OK.


    Snow on the Prairie

  • 9 years ago

    This confusion illuminates the problems with using common names for plant identification. Common names are just regional vernacular references to various plants and the same common name may apply to several, very different species. 'Snow on the Mountain' is a common name that can be applied to Aegopodium podagraria 'Variegatum' (aka goutweed or bishop's weed), Euphorbia marginata and Cerastium tomentosum (although that is more usually referred to as "snow in summer").

    Would need to see photos of the plant in question to confirm exactly which one of these it might be :-)

  • 9 years ago

    I'm not sure why the picture isn't sticking. I've actually posted it twice!

  • 9 years ago

    Make that 3 times! Trying one more time!

  • 9 years ago

    Finally! Yay! This is gorgeous! Does anyone know if it can be contained? I have enough plants that volunteer, lol! Is it easily pulled up?

  • 9 years ago

    Based on the short upper leaves, it is Snow-on-the-Mountain (Euphorbia marginata). I only have the related one, Snow-on-the-Prairie (Euphorbia bicolor), which has longer, more narrow upper leaves. How invasive it might be could depend on your soil and annual rainfall. Our snow on the prairie grows in pastures where it spreads rampantly. We mostly control it with strategic mowing that cuts it down before the seeds mature. When it pops up in the shrub beds near the house or in the fenced veggie garden, I yank it out. It might be easy to control if you clip off the flowers before they go to seed. Because we stay hot and dry most of the time, it never has gotten invasive in our pastures, but I have seen some pastures in Texas and Oklahoma that are simply filled with either Snow on the Prairie or Snow on the Mountain, so it seems like, if the conditions are right, it spreads pretty easily. Both Snow on the Prairie and Snow on the Mountain are euphorbias and have the milky sap common to euphorbias. With some people that milky sap causes contact dermatitis that results in a rash. It doesn't bother me, but I know people whose skin gets irritated if it makes contact with the milky sap.

  • 9 years ago

    I agree with Dawn that mowing seems to contain it somewhat. We have pastures that we fight it in every year and others that disappear after the first mowing??

    Soooo pretty and yet such a thug!!!

  • 9 years ago

    When my parents raised this in suburbia, in NJ, it pretty well stayed put. Routine weeding, which included thinning unwanted volunteers, seemed to do the trick. That was a very different environment than Oklahoma: more moisture and cooler temperatures.

  • 9 years ago

    I can only imagine how happy it would be in NJ. Here, if we have a really hot and dry July and August, it often isn't very widespread in autumn. In 2011, for example, we had none. However, it has recovered pretty well since then. Mine here already has gone to seed, withered and dried up in places where we didn't mow it. And, the reason we didn't mow it in those spots is that it was mixed in with goldenrod, which I love. Now they all are a brown, dried, pitiful mess. Too much heat the last couple of months, not enough rain. I think in a cultivated area where it received a little supplemental watering, it might look good all the way until the first freeze. I like to cut them and add them as a filler in bouquets of flowers that I cut to bring indoors.

  • 9 years ago

    Thanks, everyone! I think I'm going to plant it. Also, thanks for the info about the skin irritation. I touched this plant last Saturday at the Master Gardens and had skin irritation later that day. I was wondering what had caused it. At home, I use gloves when working in the beds, so I should be fine having it. Just FYI, today is the last day until April that the Cleveland County Master Gardens will be open. It's one of my happy places, so I'm going to try to get there.

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