404 
EUPHORBIACE-3S. (SPURGE FAMILY.) 
Synopsis, 
* Flowers inclosed in a calyx-like or colored involucre. 
1. Euphorbia. Involucre containing a single pistillate flower sur¬ 
rounded by many sterile flowers consisting of single stamens, 
all stalked and naked. 
* * Flowers without an involucre, monoecious. 
Ovary and pod 3-celled. 
2. Phyllanthus. Flowers axillary, scattered. Calyx 5 - 6-parted. 
Stamens 3, monadelphous. 
3. Acalypha. Sterile fl. spiked above the 1-3 lobed-bracted fertile 
ones. Calyx 3-4-parled. Stamens 8-16, monadelphous. 
4. Pilinophytum. Flowers clustered in heads or spikes ; the ster¬ 
ile above, with a 5-parted calyx, and about 12 stamens. 
Fertile calyx unequally 8-parted. Stigmas about 12. Plant 
woolly. 
— Ovary and pod 1-celled. 
5. Crotonopsis. Flowers scattered, axillary. Calyx 5-parted. 
Stamens 5. Stigmas 3, 2-lobed. Plant silvery-scurfy. 
EUPHORBIA, L. Spurge. 
Flowers monoecious, included in a cup-shaped 4 - 5-lobed invo¬ 
lucre [flower of older authors) resembling a calyx or corolla, 
usually bearing large and thick glands at its sinuses. Sterile 
flowers numerous and lining the base of the involucre, each from 
the axil of a little bract, and consisting merely of a single stamen 
jointed on a pedicel like the filament: anther-cells globular, sepa¬ 
rate. Fertile flower solitary in the middle of the involucre, soon 
protruded on a long pedicel, consisting of a 3-lobed 3-celled ovary 
with no calyx or a mere vestige. Styles 3, but 2-cleft, the stigmas 
therefore 6. Pod separating into 3 carpels which split elastically 
into 2 valves. Seed often caruncled. — Plants (herbs in the Unit¬ 
ed States), with a milky acrid juice, the uppermost leaves often 
m whorls or pairs. Peduncles lateral or terminal, often umbel¬ 
late-clustered. (Named after Euphorbus , physician to King Juba.) 
* Leaves destitute of stipules , alternate or scattered up to where the 
Jtowers begin, the floral ones opposite or whorled, all sessile: stem 
simp y or umbellately several times forked: involucres in the forks 
and terminal. 
Involucres nearly sessile , greenish: branches umbelled forked. 
** lnznlucral glands round or transversely elliptical , entire. 
1- E. Darlingtonii. (Darlington’s Spurge.) Stem-leaves 
