200 MR. G. BENTHAM OS EUPHOKBIACE K. 



the present state of our knowledge of the vegetable kingdom, 

 occasioning the least break in the regular series. It will be 

 observed also that about three fourths of the genera and nearly 

 three fourths of the species are entirely without petals ; and, of 

 the petaliferous genera, many have them only in the male flowers, 

 or have only small scales alternating with the stamens, which are 

 perhaps not always true petals. The approximation, moreover, 

 of EuphorbiaceaB to Urticeas has been well exhibited by Weddel 

 in the introductory part of his excellent monograph of TTrticeae, 

 but as an approximation only. He regards Euphorbiaceso as 

 bearing the same relation to Malvaceae that Urticese do to 



Tiliacese. 



In the limits of the order which we have adopted as those 

 which in the course of Nature appear to have become affixed to 

 it, we have followed Mueller and Baillon in including Antides- 

 mese and Scepaceae ; but we cannot agree to the exclusion ot 

 Daphnipliyllum, Buocus and its allies, Styloceras and Simmondsia, 

 upon single characters to which ordinal importance has been 

 given, though unaccompanied by any other one ; neither can w T e 

 admit into the order, as proposed by Baillon, the Chailletiacese, 

 with their usually hermaphrodite flowers, besides other minor 

 differential characters. So also the anomalous genus Callitricne, 

 considered by Baillon as a tribe of Euphorbiacese, appears to us 

 to have neither the characters of the order nor the habit of any 

 of its genera, even though it may not be really a reduced form or 

 Haloragese, where we had placed it in the ' Grenera Plantarum. 



In our general arrangement of the order we have chiefly 

 followed Mueller, consolidating, however, or lowering the grade 

 of those groups which are technically founded on the aestivation ot 

 the calyx or the form of the anthers, and dividing the whole order, 

 including the Buxea?, into six tribes. Of these the first three, 

 chiefly extratropical, are each one distinguished chiefly by some 

 one abnormal character, more or less confirmed, however, by acces- 

 sory ones — Euphorliece by the calyx-like involucre, Stenolooecs 

 ^ by the narrow cotyledons, and Buxece by the peculiar position ot 

 the ovules. The great mass of tropical genera form two great 

 tribes : — Phyllanthece, with the outer stamens, when isomerous, 

 opposite the sepals, and with two ovules to each cell of the ovary ; 

 and Crotonece, with the outer stamens, when isomerous, alternate 

 with the sepals or opposite the petals, and only one ovule to each 

 cell of the ovary. A few genera with the oppositisepalous 





