THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 7 



autumn? Are there more fruiting fronds produced in autumn 

 than in spring? If our readers can give answers to any of 

 these questions, we shall be glad to have them. — JVillord N. 

 Clute in Fern Bulletin. 



THE SPURGES. 



BY DR. W. W. BAILEY. 



AMONG the plants annually sent the writer for determina- 

 tion, none is more frequent than the cypress-spurge. It 



seems the infallible ill-luck of beginners to meet with the od- 

 dities and freaks of nature, and even the trained botanist 

 meets with few greater eccentricities than t\\or-<t of the genus 

 Euphorbia. With the confidence which comes of a few lessons 

 under a competent master, the young student, though constant- 

 ly warned that he may meet with pitfalls and barbed wire in 

 his course, proceeds with confidence to tackle what the old 

 hand puts aside for a very rainy day. 



Dr. Asa Gray used to remark of Euphorbia that properly 

 constructed ones were put in South Africa or other remote 

 lands, in order that the man of science should have his knowl- 

 edge properly tested. The botanist was first, on data presented 

 by the species he familiarly knew, to build up a theory, which 

 later would be confirmed by discovery. 



The trouble with Spurges — and the Spurge family in gen- 

 eral — is that nature has played with them many varied tricks 

 of omission, and again, has exalted things usually trivial 

 into bodies or organs superficially resembling parts of common 

 occurence in other plants. She seems to have put to herself 

 the problem of how to form a flower unlike any other, and 

 with as few parts as possible. Yet, when one looks at a spurge 

 or any of its congeners, he never doubts that he has a perfect 

 and complete flower. 



So far as stems and leaves go, there is. as a rule, nothing 

 peculiar. Most of the plants possess a milky, acrid juice, in 



