with spreading terete branches ; branchlets nearly as thick 

 as the little finger, bluish-green, speckled with white, tips 

 obtuse. Leaves towards the tips of the branches, three to 

 three and a half inches long, spreading and drooping, sub- 

 sessile, fleshy, cuneately obovate, apiculate, obscurely crenu- 

 late, very dark-green and shining above with spreading 

 nerves and reticulate nervules, pale blue-green and 

 quite smooth beneath, with a strong midrib and no visible 

 nerves. Cymes in the axils of the uppermost leaves and 

 about half their length, di- trichotomously branched; 

 peduncle half to three-quarter inch long, as thick as a 

 small goose-quill, dark-green, speckled with white like 

 the branches, glabrous; pedicels one-quarter of an. inch 

 long, puberulous ; bracts at the forks and base of the in- 

 volucres opposite, quadrate, concave, puberulous, as long 

 as the involucre, all pale green. Involucre one-quarter to 

 one-third of an inch in diameter, yellow, formed of five mem- 

 branous hyaline quadrate scales with lacerate tips, connate 

 at the base, and seated in a fleshy hemispheric cup which 

 is crenulate on the margin within (this cup answers to the 

 large glands on the involucre of Euphorbia, which are here 

 confluent). _ Male fl. (each of a single stipitate stamen) 

 numerous, in five fascicles opposite the involucral scales, 

 mixed with linear hairy lacerate bracteoles. Fern. ft. a 

 stipitate trigonous pistil (often imperfect) in the centre 

 of the involucre, with a short style swollen in the middle, 

 and three diverging stigmas, each forked at the tip.— 

 J. D. H. 



F ig- 1, Branch of cyme with two bracts at the fork, and an involucre with 

 its two bracts ; 2, involucre with the cup removed ; 3, vertical section of 

 involucre showing the cup, the involucre scale, male flowers, and female 

 nowers ; 4, scale of involucre :— all enlarged. 



