According to Hager's Handbuch, human overdoses result in burning mouth, nausea, diarrhea, dilated pupils and collapse with pallor, rigidity, frigidity, cold sweats, arrhythmic pulse, vertigo, delirium, alternating hot and cold flashes, cramps, etc. The plant has caused poisoning in children. Five California women are said to have pickled the fruits, believing them to be capers. Severe but not fatal poisoning ensued. Leaves simple, entire, lanceolate, essentially one-nerved, opposite or whorled on the stem, narrowly lanceolate, apically acute, basally abruptly truncate, to 15 cm long.
Leaves subtending flower clusters broader, shorter, the flowers greenish yellow.
Germplasm Reported from the Mediterranean Center of Diversity, mole plant, or cvs thereof, is reported to tolerate drought, frost, and poor soils. One might detect two schools of thought on the feasibility of the petroleum plant, the optimistic Calvin camp and the pessimistic Sachs school. Sachs et al. A recent world-wide search for new germplasm has not yet uncovered E. lathyris plants with significantly higher rosin contents. Distribution Native of the Mediterranean, cultivated as medicinal or ornamental, escaping and self-seeding along the East and West coasts of the United States.