EitphorUa,] EUPHOEBiACEiE (Brown). 313 



The glands of the involucre of MacOwan's specimens differ from the others in 

 having 3-7 teeth along their outer margin, but this may only be a seasonal 

 variation,^ as I have found that the glands on my cultivated plant are not only 

 variable in this toothing, but one year were of a brilliant red instead of the 

 brownish-crimson of the previous and following times of flowering. 



In Commelin, Ifort, Med. Amstehd. L 33, ^g, 17, under the name, Planta 



lactaria africana, a species of Euphorbia is represented, which may possibly be 



E. Goi^gmiis, This figure is a very remarkable and instructive one. It represents 



an imported plant, whose branches, under the influence of the moister European 



climate, have become much elongated and taper upwards into quite slender leafy 



portions, resembling those of the ordinary herbaceous species, whilst from the 



central part of the main body of the plant arises a branch, evidently developed in 



Europe, which is quite slender, terete, without a trace of tubercles and bearing 



leaves at the upper part. This branch is exactly like, and (if cut from the plant) 



would be mistaken for a young shoot of one of the herbaceous species, and seems 



to demonstrate that these dwarf many-branched thick fleshy species of South 



Africa, during a very long period of a very slow modification from a moist to a very 



dry climate, have gradually been evolved from perennial herbaceous species, whose 



stems or branches have become more and more dwarfed and succulent, and whose 



rootstock has become very much thickened into a succulent storehouse of water 



and food as the climate has become drver, see the Gardeners' Chronicle, 1914, Ivi. 

 230, fig. 91. ^ 



^Upon this plate of Commelin's, Isnard in Me'tn. Acad, Hoy, dcs Sciences y Paris, 

 ^^^J}, 3S6, founds his Euphoi'hium anacanthum, angusto Polygoni folio, but the two 

 varieties he has placed under it belong to E, Capid-Medusfc , Linn., and are 

 certainly quite distinct from Commelin's plant. 



96. E, passa {E. E. Br.); dwarf^ succulent, spineless; main body 

 of the plant globose, obconic or subcylindric, 2-4 in. thick, pro- 

 ducing at the top numerous radiatelj spreading branches around 

 the circumference of a truncate or slightly depressed tuberculate 

 central area ; branches 1-8 (or under cultivation sometimes becom- 

 ing 6-14:) in. long, 4-6 lin. thick, cyhndric, tuberculate, bright 

 green; tubercles rhomboid, 4-6-angled, U-3 lin. long, 1^-2 lin. 



broad and l-| lin, prominent; leaves U-4 lin. long, narrowly 



Hnear, acute, conca^'e above, convex beneath, green ; involucres on 

 peduncles 1-6 lin. long, solitary in the axils of the tubercles of the 

 central area of the main stem, and at the tips of some of the 

 branches, often very numerous, 3^-4 lin. in diam, cup-shaped, 

 glabrous, ^vith 5 glands and 5 broadly rounded or transversely 

 oblong fringed lobes ; glands horizontally spreading, 1 lin. in their 

 greater diam., transversely oblong or elliptic-oblong, entire^ to 

 slightly crenulate on the outer margin, yellow, under cultivation 

 often changing to orange or to bright red ; ovary acutely 3-angled, 

 pubescent with rather long hairs, subsessile or very shortly pedicel- 

 late, included in the involucre ; styles united in a column f lin. 

 long, \vith very broad cuneate or obcordate recurved-spreading 

 stigmas, notched at the tips, glabrous. E, pagmformis, Bal'er in 

 Sauml Mef. Bot, iii. t 161, not of Boiss. E. procnmhens, N. E. Br. 

 «» Bot Mag. t 8082, and of Berger, SuU. Euphorh. 118, exch all 

 ^ijns, exceiif the above, not of Miller. 



Easterx Regiox: Natal ; Scottsburg, Pole Evans \ Umzumbi, 50-150 ft., Wood ! 

 aud without precise locality. Cooper ! 



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