Last evening I was trimming a dead branch with a pole saw and got an eye full of 'sawdust'. I couldn't get it out and my eyeball was scratched. I'm finally out of the worst of the pain, last night was terrible but a trip to the doc could still be in order, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and still waiting to see. And this was from an innocent oak tree. Once I jumped off the ledge next door when I was cleaning and after stepping down without looking, almost impaled myself in an unmentionable spot. I would have been like a stuck pig on an old fence post. Last year I cut the tip off my little finger trimming liatris and did the same stupid stunt Saturday except this time a different finger from a different plant and the cut was further in so the tip didn't get cut off, just a lot of dripping blood. I still have a big knot on a finger with a sticker in it that hit the knuckle which looks awful and hurts like the blazes when I hit it, I'm hoping it eventually goes away. Once I got a pyracantha thorn in my elbow and had to get it x-rayed, $300 later they told me to take ibuprophen and that x-rays don't show wood. Really? It hurt for about two years if I bumped my elbow. "The river, she has a thousand ways she can kill". I heard that line in a movie a long time ago. It was John Voight saying it but I can't remember the movie. The point is, there's all kinds of ways to hurt yourself in the garden.

Does it have milky sap? That's a pretty good indicator that its some type of spurge. It could be Leafy Spurge (Euphorbia esula) or a young Toothed Spurge (Euphorbia dentata) but your leaf veins don't look quite right for that species.

Thank you, Frank. I always love it when you post, because I learn SO MUCH! That's a very interesting Euphorb. and it definitely looks like it could be related closely to the poinsettia plants. Congratulations on a flowering plant in 2 months! That's amazing! Kate

I agree with Susan's ID of Compass Plant. They grow on the east side of our woodland and I love the flowers. The crotons are hard for me to tell apart, but I do think that's what you have. We have a fuzzier looking croton here that I think is Texas Croton. I am not sure we have woolly croton in our part of the state. If we do, I've never seen it while in bloom. The one in the last photo resembles some weed that pops up in my driveway and looks like a croton but isn't as woolly as the other crotons here so I don't know if it is a croton. Our Texas crotons are not invasive in the clay pastures on our property, but in some parts of our county with extremely sandy soil they are highly invasive and will fight the native grasses and other forbs and take over every square foot of growing space that they can wrestle away from the other plants. Susan, Is there a croton that looks a lot like woolly croton but isn't woolly? Cause I have one in my driveway as I mentioned above that seems like a croton, but has no woolly feature to it. Mia, I've linked the August page from the Biosurvey plant-list-by-bloom-date because it has both Texas Croton and Woolly Croton on it. Just click on the name to see the photos. As for the sunflowers, there are several different native sunflowers here in our state. I don't know that they are economically important, although they are an important food source for native wildlife. They are very tough plants that survive on low moisture and I try to leave them alone on our property and mow around them because the birds and the deer love to eat them. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: August Plant List