4 EUPHORBIACEAE. 



5. Croton lucidus L. Syst. ed. 10, 1275. 1759. 



Croton Hjalmarsonii Griseb. Fl. Br. W. I. 40. 1859. 



Croton lucidus pubigerus Griseb. loc. eit. 1859. 



A broad shrub 1.5-2 m. high; branchlets glabrous or glabrescent. Leaves 

 elliptic to oblong-lanceolate, 5-15 cm. long, 2-4 cm. wide, glabrous or pubes- 

 cent, minutely pellucid-punctate, entire, narrowing to a roundish base and apex; 

 petiole about one-fourth the length of the blade; stipules ephemeral. Inflores- 

 cence in terminal racemes. Male flowers: sepals ovate, imbricative, much 

 smaller than those of the female, ciliate on the margin; female flowers: calyx- 

 lobes oblong, blunt, margin reduplicate, somewhat persistent at the base; 

 styles 4-partite, the branches bifid to near the base. Seeds ovoid-oblong, shin- 

 ing, flatfish on the ventrum, the dorsum convex. 



Rocky thickets and openings, throughout the archipelago from Great Sturrup 

 Tay south to Grand Turk Island: Cuba; Porto Rico; Jamaica and the Caymans. 

 Croton glabell-um of Schoepf. Fire-bush. 



An examination of the type, and many specimens, indicates that C. Hjalmarsonii 

 is but a race of this species which develops many interspersing races, differing in 

 the size of the leaves and in pubescence, both in Jamaica and in the Bahamas. 



6. Croton bahamensis Millsp. Field Mus. Bot. 2: 308. 1909. 



A shrub 1-2 m. high with a peppery odor; branchlets white stellate- 

 tomentose. Leaves lanceolate, 3-7 em. long, 7-17 mm. broad, acuminate, 

 mucronate, base slightly oblique and rounded, with 2 patellate glands, green 

 above and equidistantly stellate-pubescent, densely stellate-pubescent beneath, 

 the margin subentire or crenate-dentate with stipitate glands in the sinuses; 

 stipules fimbriate and stipitate-glandular. Inflorescence in dense terminal 

 racemes. Female flowers: calyx-segments oblong, stellate-pilose; styles 4-fid 

 to the base and villous with moniliform hairs. Male flowers: calyx non- 

 glanduliferous; petals white, cymbiform, the apex minutely fimbriate; stamens 

 35-50. Capsule globose, deeply suleate, glabrous below but long-pilose in the 

 sulci and at the apex; seeds brownish black, the rugae rib-like. 



Open pastures and in thickets bordering openings, Eleuthera and Long Island 

 to Mariguana. Endemic. Referred to in Field Mus. Bot. 2: 153, and by Hitchcock 

 as C. humilis L. ; by Grisebach and by Dolley as C. humilis origanifoliua. Bahama 

 Crotox. Pepper-bush. 



7. Croton lobatus L. Sp. PI. 1005. 1753. 



A low herb, 3-6 dm. high, the branches and branchlets pilose, the longer 

 hairs simple. Leaves membranous, 3-5-lobed, glabrous, papillate, the segments 

 elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate, acuminate, serrate ; petioles nearly as long as the 

 blades. Female flowers: calyx-lobes spathulate-lanceolate, glanduliferous and 

 with a few long acicular hairs; styles free or nearly so, 3-8-fid at the apex. 

 Male flowers: sepals glabrous; petals lanceolate. Capsule globose-ellipsoid, the 

 cocci with a number of scattered acicular hairs; seeds ochre-color, quadrangular- 

 cylindric, 5 mm. long, 3 mm. broad, the dorsum apiculate at the caruncle, all the 

 facets marked by incomplete and more or less transverse ridges. 



Adventitious in waste places, New Providence, near Nassau : West Indies ; con- 

 tinental tropical America. Lobed Croton. 



Schoepf's record of Croton argentcum L., as Bahamian, is, presumably, erro- 

 neous. 



9. CURCAS Adans. Fam. PI. 2: 356. 1763, 



Glabrous or nearly glabrous trees or shrubs with petioled, lobed or entire 

 leaves, and monoecious flowers in compound or simple cymes. Calyx 5-lobed or 

 5-parted. Corolla gamopetalous, the petals united to or above the middle. 

 Stamens about 10, in 2 series. Ovary 2-3-celled; ovules 1 in each cavity. 

 Fruit a capsule, splitting into 2 or 3 valves. [Malabar name.] Perhaps 10 

 species, natives of tropical regions, the following typical. 



