CROTON. 



370. C. suberosum HBK. ii. 86. — Salt places near Acapulco. 



Branches corky. Leaves ovate-roundish, acute, cordate, entire, 

 thickish, hoary and downy above, shaggy and white beneath, with no 

 glands. Flowers dioecious. — Employed in Peru as an aromatic purgative. 



371. C. balsamiferum Linn. Mant. 125. Jacq. amer. 255. 

 t. 162. f. 3. — Common in Tortola, Martinique and Caracas, on 

 rocky stony cliffs. 



A branched diffuse shrub 3—1 feet high, abounding in every part in a 

 thick balsamic brownish balsam. Branches closely covered with rust- 

 coloured fur. Leaves tomentose, ovate-lanceolate, obtuse, mucronate, 

 slightly cordate, with 2 urceolate glands at the base underneath. Spikes 

 terminal, compact, chiefly male, female at the base. — A spirituous liqueur 

 called Eau de Mantes, used in irregular menstruation, is distilled from it. 



372. C. perdicipes A. de St. H. pi. us. 59. used in Brazil as a 

 cure for syphilis, and as a useful diuretic. 



373. C. campestris Id. 60. has a purgative root, and is em- 

 ployed in syphilitic disorders. 



*** Several kinds of Croton, called Orelha d' Onca in Brazil — 

 low hairy shrubs, which grow on elevated grassy plains, — furnish in 

 their roots a good substitute for Senega. They stimulate and pro- 

 mote the secretions especially of the pituitous membranes. They are 

 administered with success in atonic catarrhs, asthma, and even in phthisis 

 tuberculosa. — Martins. 



RICLNUS. 



Flowers monoecious. Calyx 3-5-parted, valvate. Petals 0. 

 o* . Filaments numerous, unequally polyadelphous ; cells of the 

 anther distinct, below the apex of the filament. ? . Style short ; 

 stigmas 3, deeply bipartite, oblong, coloured, feathery ; ovary 

 globose, 3-celled, with an ovule in each cell. Fruit generally 

 prickly, capsular, tricoccous. — Trees, shrubs, or herbaceous plants 

 sometimes becoming arborescent. Leaves alternate, stipulate, 

 palmate, peltate, with glands at the apex of the petiole. Flowers 

 in terminal panicles, the lower male, the upper female ; all arti- 

 culated with their peduncles, and sometimes augmented by 

 biglandular bracts. A. de J. chiefly. 



374. R. communis Linn, sp.pl. 1430. Roxb.fl. ind. iii. 689. 

 Woodv. 171. t. 61. & and C. i. t. 50. — (Rheede ii. t. 32.) — 

 Cultivated all over India. 



A glaucous plant, extremely variable in size : when cultivated in Great 

 Britain an annual 3 or 4 feet high ; in India sometimes becoming a pretty 

 large tree "of many years' duration, atieast such is Roxburgh's statement. 

 Clusius saw it in Spain with a trunk as large as a man's body, and 15-20 

 feet high, and Ray found it in Sicily as big as our common alder trees, 

 woody and long lived ; but Willdenow considers the arborescent 

 kinds which are more than annual as distinct species, which he calls 

 R viridis, africanus, lividus and inermis ; they do not appear however to 

 be anything more than mere varieties. Boot perennial or annual, 

 long, thick, and fibrous. Stems round, thick, jointed, channelled, 

 183 N 4 



