wood spurge

The English wood Spurge, hath diverse tough woody brownish red branches, two foote high or more, bare or naked of leaves, for a space next to the roote, and afterwards set up to the toppes, with many narrow and long leaves, yet broader than those of the Sea Spurge, and nothing so large as the next, somewhat smooth in handling, and without any dentes about the edges, turning reddish in the spring, and more in the sommer time: […]

1640, John Parkinson, Theatrum Botanicum: The Theater of Plants : Or, An Herball of Large Extent: Containing Therein a More Ample and Exact History and Declaration of the Physicall Herbs and Plants ... Distributed Into Sundry Classes Or Tribes, for the More Easie Knowledge of the Many Herbes of One Nature and Property ..., page 186

The Wood Spurge, seen so frequently during our country rambles, suggests by its spreading aspect a clever juggler balancing on his upturned chin a widely-branched series of delicate green saucers on fragile stems, which ramify below from a single rod.

1897, William Thomas Fernie, Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure, page 532