251 MR. G. BENTHAM ON EUPIIOEBIACEiE. 



besides the P. JNiruri, a tropica] annual ubiquitous weed. These 

 two sections have each of them two or three species with the rudi- 

 mentary pistil characteristic of Securinega. The general character 

 of the widely dispersed variable species shows no marked difference 

 in the two continents ; and there are in both continents species 

 distinct in character and of limited area ; and among these there 

 are several that show an affinity between the Mexicano-Cuban and 

 the Mascarene regions. The other five sections of typical Phyl- 

 lantJiussLTe Xylophylla, exclusively American, with 11 species, and 

 Kirganelia, Emblica, Emblicastrum, and Beidia, about 50 species, 

 all limited to the Old World and rather more Asiatic and eastern 

 than African. In what may be considered as primary deviations 

 from the type in different directions, we have only one American 

 group, Williamia, with 3 Cuban species ; four Asiatic and African, 

 Glochidium, Sauropus, Cluytiandm, and Agyneia, about 140 spe- 

 cies ; and one in Australia, Synostemon, with 12 species. 



AndracJine can scarcely be considered as more than a somewhat 

 further deviation from the typical JPhyllanthus, chiefly in the de- 

 velopment of small scale-like petals ; it has also a less tropical cha- 

 racter, extending into temperate regions in different directions, but 

 always in rather different forms, the several sections corresponding 

 generally (barring the petals) as much with different species of 

 JPhyllanthus as with each other. The normal form Eraclissa, 3 spe- 

 cies, has its chief home in the east Mediterranean and Arabic 

 regions. The Asiatic Arachne (Zeptopus), 4 species, the North- 

 American Lepidantlius and the South- African Pseudophyllanthus, 

 both monotypic, are so far independent of each other as to have 

 been treated by some botanists as distinct genera. The Peruvian 

 JPhyllanthidia is as yet doubtful. 



Savia, with 4 West-Indian and 6 Mascarene species, must also 

 be taken as an early petaliferous offset of the JPhyllanthus stock, or 

 perhaps as two contemporaneous offsets ; for the differentiation of 

 the West-Indian species with the small scale-like petals of other 

 Phyllantheous genera, and of the Mascarene species with the 

 fully developed petals of Crotonese, may have been quite indepen- 

 dent of each other. There are no other American Euphorbiacese 

 that can be considered as deviations from the Phyllanthus stock ; 

 but in the Old World there are : — Fluggea, with 6 species from 

 Africa as well as from Asia and Australia ; JBreynia, 12 species 

 from the Indo- Australian region ; Leptonema, 1 Mascarene species ; 

 and Neorcepera, 2 Australian species. 



