Corn Spurry

Pink (Caryophyllaceae family):

Spergula arvensis L.

EPPO code:

SPRAR

Other names:

Spurrey

Species information

Lifecycle:

Annual.

Propagation:

Reproduces by seed.

Emergence:

Typically, corn spurry germinates and emerges in the early part of spring.

Habitat:

While it is found throughout Ontario, corn spurry is most commonly found on light sandy soils.

Competitiveness:

A Canadian study conducted in spring cereals demonstrated that corn spurry was not a very competitive species. A density of over 250 plants/m² was required before an economic threshold was reached (Weaver and Ivany, 1998). However, a Swedish study found that corn spurry was detrimental in spring cereals compared to other species. However, yield loss calculated from 1,691 trials was only 5.4% (Milberg and Hallgren, 2004), so even if detrimental, the impact on yield loss would be relatively small.

Identification clues

Seedling

Cotyledons:

Filiform and cylindrical, similar to true leaves.

Young leaves:

The first leaves of corn spurry are long and narrow, and grow in a rosette-like cluster.

Mature leaves:

Mature leaves are similar in size and shape to first leaves, but they grow in whorls of 6–30 at each node.

Mature plant

Stem:

Its stem is much branched, finely hairy and sometimes sticky. It is bright green in colour and grows 10–50 cm tall.

Flowers:

Corn spurry has very small flowers with five white petals offset by five green sepals that are clustered on short stalks at the top of the plant.

Fruit:

The plant’s seedpods are round and split into five divisions that are filled with many flat, black and round seeds.

Roots:

Taproot with fibrous lateral roots.

Often mistaken for

With its many, very narrow leaves that form a whorl at each node, corn spurry rarely gets confused with other weed species that have whorled leaves, such as carpetweed, cleavers and smooth bedstraw.