TITHYMALOIDE^. 89 



1. CROTON, Linmrus. Pale scurfy or stellate-hairy plants with 

 alternate exstipulate entire leaves, and racemose, cymose or solitary 

 unisexual apetalous flowers. Staminate calyx 4 — 6-partecl, slightly 

 imbricate in bud. Stamens 5—7, on a hairy receptacle ; anthers inflexed 

 in bud. Pistillate calyx when present 5-parted. Ovary simple and 

 1-celled, or 2 — 3-lobed with as many cells ; styles as many as the ovary- 

 cells, simple or once or twice forked. Seed grayish, smooth and shining. 

 * Fniii 3-lohed ; styles forked. 



1. C. Californicus, Mull. Arg. in DO. Prodr. xv^ 691 (1862). Hen- 

 decaridra procanihens, Esch. Mem. Acad. Petrop. x (1826) ; H. & A. Bot. 

 Beech. 389. t. 91. Suffrutescent, the woody basal part of the stem 

 decumbent or prostrate ; leafy branches erect, 1 ft. high ; these and the 

 foliage silvery-canescent with a fine scurf and a minute stellate 

 pubescence : leaves narrowly oblong or elliptical, obtuse at each end, 

 1 — 2 in. long, on slender petioles half as long : staminate flowers greenish, 

 in short subsessile racemes ; calyx-lobes about 1 line long ; filaments 

 hairy : pistillate fl. mostly solitary, on short pedicels ; styles twice 

 forked : capsule deeply 3-lobed, ^4 in. thick : seed 2^^ lines long, with a 

 small appressed caruncle. — Plentiful among the sand-hills about San 

 Francisco and southward. 



* * Fruil, of a single 1-seeded carpel ; style simple. — Genus 

 Ebemocaepus, Benth. 



2. C. setigerus, Hook. Fl. ii. 141 (1840) ; Benth. Bot. Sulph. 53. t. 26 

 (1844) under Eremocarpus. A stout low annual with short but wide- 

 spread leafy branches, the heavy-scented herbage with a spreading hispid 

 and an appressed stellate pubescence : leaves ovoid or rhomboid, % — 2 

 in. long, on slender petioles, the upper crowded and appearing opposite 

 or whorled : staminate fl. few in a corymb, long-pedicelled ; calyx with 

 oblong obtuse segments a line long : pistillate fl. 1, 2 or 3 in an axil ; 

 ovary and style densely pubescent : capsule and seed 2 lines long. —Plant 

 often a foot or two broad and only a few inches high, yet all the branches 

 clear of the ground ; regarded as a troublesome weed, though the seeds 

 are greedily devoured by wild fowl, whence the common name of Turkey 

 Mullein has been derived, the nutritive character of the seeds being taken 

 in conjunction with the mullein-like herbage. It is far more prevalent 

 in the interior valleys and foot-hills than along the seaboard, in middle 

 California. July — Nov. 



2. EUPHORBIA, Pliny (Spurge). Herbs with milky juice, alternate 

 or opposite toothed or entire leaves, and inflorescence either terminally 

 clustered, or solitary in the forks of the many branches. Both staminate 

 and pistillate flowers within the same involucre ; this cup-shaped and 

 like a calyx, the 4 or 5 lobes minute, usually alternating with as many 



