294 SPURGE FAMILY. 



1. EUPHORBIA, SPURGE. (Said to be named for Euphorbus, physician 

 to King Juba.) Flowers commonly in late summer. 



1. Shrubby species of the conservatory, winter-flowering, with red bracts or leaves. 



E. pulcherrima, or POIXSETTIA, of Mexico : unarmed stout shrub, with 

 ovate or oblong and angled or sinuately few-lobed leaves, rather downy beneath, 

 those next the flowers mostly entire (4' - 5' long) and of the brightest vermilion- 

 red ; flowers in globular greenish involucres bearing a great yellow gland at the 

 top on one side. 



E. splendens, of the Mauritius : smooth with thick and horridly prickly 

 stems, oblong-spatulate mucronate leaves, and slender clammy peduncles bearing 

 a cyme of several deep-red apparently 2-petalous flowers ; but the seeming petals 

 are* bracts around the cup-like involucre of the real flowers. 



E. f&lgens, or JACQUINI^FL^RA, of Mexico : unarmed, smooth, with slen- 

 der recurved branches and broadly lanceolate leaves, few-flowered ; peduncles 

 shorter than the petioles, what appears like a 5-cleft corolla are the bright red 

 lobes of the involucre. 



2. Herbs natives of or naturalized in the country, the first and last and some- 

 times a few of the others cult, in gardens : fl. late summer. 



* The leaves which are crowded next the flower-cups or involucres haw. their mar- 

 gins or a part of the base colored (white or red) : stem erect, 1 - 3 high. 



E. marginata. Wild on the plains W. of the Mississippi, and cult, for 

 ornament : leaves pale, ovate or oval, sessile, the lower alternate, uppermost in 

 threes or pairs and broadly white-margined ; flower-cup with 5 white petal-like 

 appendages behind as many saucer-shaped glands. 



E. heterophylla. Rocky banks S. W. : smooth ; leaves alternate, ovate 

 and sinuate- toothed, or fiddle-shaped, or some of them lanceolate or linear and 

 entire ; the upper with red base ; no petal-like appendages to the flower-cup and 

 only 1 or 2 sessile glands. 



E. dentata. Rich soil from Penn. S. W. : hairy, only the lower leaves 

 alternate, the upper opposite, varying from ovate to linear, uppermost paler or 

 whitish at base, and the few glands of the flower-cup short-stalked. 



* # The leaves none of them colored : but the flower-cup with 5 bright-white con- 



spicuous appendages, imituting a 5-cleft corolla. 11 



E. COrollata. Gravelly or sandy soil, from New York S. & W. : 2 - 3 

 high ; leaves varying from ovate to linear, entire, the lower alternate, upper 

 whorled and opposite ; flower-cups umbelled, long-stalked. 



* * * Leaves all alike and opposite, green, or with a brown-red spot, short-petioled, 



with scaly or fringed-cut stipules : stems low-spreading or prostiate, repeat- 

 edly forked : a small flower-cup in each fork, bearing 4 glands, each bor- 

 dered with a more or less petal-like white or reddish margin or appendage. 

 Of these there are several species, insignificant weeds ; these two are the 

 commonest everywhere in sandy or gravelly open places. 



E. maculata. Prostrate ; leaves oblong-linear, very oblique at base, ser- 

 rulate above, blotched in the centre ; pods sharp-angled, very small. 



E. hypericif61ia. Ascending 10'-20' high; leaves ovate-oblong or 

 linear-oblong, serrate, often with red spot or margins; pod blunt-angled; seeds 

 wrinkled. 



* * * * Leaves without stipules, none with colored margins or spots : the flower- 



cups also green or greenish, umbelled, their glands wholly destitute of any 

 petal-like appendage. 



*- Leaves of the commonly erect stem alternate or scattered : those of the umbel-like 

 inflorescence ichorlcd or opposite and of different shape, usually roundish : 

 glands of the flower-cup mostly 4. Weeds or weed-like. 



++ Glands of the flower-cup transversely oval and obtuse. 

 E. platyphylla. Nat. from Europe N. : upper stem-leaves lance-oblong, 

 acute, minutely serrulate ; uppermost heart-shaped ; floral ones triangular-ovate 

 and heart-shaped; umbel 5-rayed; glands large and sessile; pod beset with 

 depressed warts ; seed smooth/ 



