SPURGE FAMILY. 293 



101. SAURURACE-aE, LIZARD'S-TAIL FAMILY. 



A very small family, having a single Eastern North American 

 representative in 



Saurtirus c6rnuus, LIZARD'S-TAIL. Wet swamps : fl. summer ; stem 

 jointed, 2 high, branching ; leaves heart-shaped, with converging ribs, petioled ; 

 flowers white, crowded in a dense but slender tail-like spike, with the end 

 nodding, perfect, but with neither calyx nor corolla ; stamens 6 or 7, with long 

 slender white filaments ; pistils 3 or 4, slightly united at base. (Lessons, p. 90, 

 fig. 180.) 



102. EUPHOR.BIACE.a3, SPURGE FAMILY. 



Plants with mostly milky acrid juice and monoecious or dioecious 

 flowers, of very various structure ; the ovary and fruit commonly 

 3-celled and with single or at most a pair of hanging ovules and 

 seeds in each cell. 



1. Ovules and seeds only one in each cell. 



* Flowers both staminate and pistillate relly destitute, both of calyx and corolla : a 

 pistillate and numerous staminite surrounded by a cup-like involucre which 

 imitates a calyx, so that the whole, would be taken for one perfect flower. 



1. EUPHORBIA. For the structure of the genus, which is recondite, see Manual,' 



and Structural Botany, fig. 1143. These plants may be known, mostly, by 

 having the 3-lobed ovary raised out of the cup, on a curved stalk, "its '3 

 short styles each 2-cleft, making 6 stigmas. Fruit when ripe bursting into 

 the 3 carpels, and each splitting into 2 valves, discharging the seed. What 

 seems to be a stamen with a jointed filament is really a staminate flower, in 

 the axil of a slender bract, consisting of a single stamen on a pedicel, the joint 

 being the junction. 



# * Flowers of both kinds provided with a distinct calyx. 



2. STILLINGIA. Flowers in a terminal spike, naked and staminate above, a few 



fertile flowers at base. Calyx 2 - 3-clcft. Stamens 2, rarely 3. Pod 3-lobed. 

 Stigmas 3, simple. Bracts with a fleshy gland on each side. Leaves alter- 

 nate, stipulate. 



3. ACALYPHA. Flowers in small clusters disposed in spikes, staminate above, 



fertile at base ; or sometimes the two sorts in separate spikes. Calyx of 

 sterile flowers 4-parted, of fertile 3 - 5-parted. Stamens 8 - 16, short, mona- 

 delphous at base; the 2 cells of the anther long and hanging. Styles 3, 

 cut-fringed on the upper face, red. Pod of 3 (rarely 2 or 1) lobes or cells. 

 Fertile flower-clusters embraced by a leaf-like cut-lobed bract. Leaves alter- 

 nate, petioled, with stipules, serrate. 



4. RICINUS. Flowers in large panicled clusters, the fertile above, the staminate 



below. Calyx 5-parted. Stamens very many, in several bundles. Styles 3, 

 united at base, each 2-parted, red. Pod large, 3-lobed, with 3 large seeds. 

 Leaves alternate, with stipules. 



5. JATROPHA. Flowers in cymes or panicles; the fertile in the main forks. 



Calyx colored like a corolla, in the sterile flowers mostly salver-shaped and 

 5-lobed, enclosing 10-30 stamens, somewhat monadelphous in two or more 

 ranks ; in the fertile 5-parted. Styles 3, united below, once or twice forked 

 at the apex. Pod 3-celled, 3-seeded. Leaves alternate, long-petioled, with 

 stipules. 



2. Ovules and mostly seeds 2 in each cell of the ovary and 3-horned pod. Juice not 

 milky in the following: which have monoecious flowers, 4 sepals, 4 exserted 

 ttamens in the sterile, and 3 awl-shaped spreading or recurved styles or stigmat 

 in the fertile flowers. 



6. BUXUS. Flowers in small sessile bracted clusters in the axils of the thick 



and evergreen entire opposite leaves. Shrubs or trees. 



7. PACHYSANDRA. Flowers in naked lateral spikes, staminate above, a few- 



fertile flowers at base. Filaments long, thickish and flat, white. Nearly 

 herbaceous, low, tufted: leaves barely evergreen, alternate, coarsely few- 

 toothed. 



