558 CXIV. BALANOPHOKACE^. 



minute flowers and with small clavate bodies. Perianth 0. Ovary 

 stalked, livaline; style long. Fl. B. I. v. 5, p. 237; Weddell, in Ann. 

 Sc. Nat. ser. 3, v. 14 (1850) t. 9 ; Hook. £. in Trans. Linn. Soc. v. 22 

 (1859) p. 46 ; Mrs. Hart, in Journ. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc. v. 1 (1886) 

 p. 75 ; Trim. Fl. Ceyl. v. 3, p. 476 ; Woodr. in Journ. Bomb. Nat. 

 V. 12 (1899) p. 368.— Flowers: Oet.-Nov. 



Deccan : Mahableshwar, Mrs. W. E. Hart, fairly plentiful in the wood above the 

 Dhobi's waterfall in November, H. M. Birdwood; Khandala, ou roots of Carissa 

 Carandas, Woodrow. S. M. Country: Choria Ghat, Dalselll — Distrib. India 

 (W. Peninsula); Ceylon. 



Order CXV. EUPHORBIACE-S]. 



Trees, shrubs, or herbs often witli milky juice. Leaves alternate or 

 opposite, rarely divided or compound ; stipules usually small, caducous 

 or persistent, rarely connate in a bud-protecting sheath ; glands some- 

 times at the apex of the petiole or at the base of the leaf-blade. Flowers 

 usually small or minute, always 1-sexual ; inflorescence various, usually 

 compound, sometimes {Eiiphorhia) of single naked 1-staminate florets in 

 a perianth-like involucre surrounding a solitary pistil, more commonly 

 the main inflorescence centripetal, axillary or racemose, the subdivisions 

 cymose, sometimes wholly cymose iu terminal dichotomous panicles, or 

 reduced to simple clusters or solitary florets. Perianth often small, 

 sometimes obsolete, often dissimilar in the two sexes, usually simple, 

 calycine with valvate or imbricate segments, sometimes calyciue and 

 2-seriate imbricate, with segments all similar or occasionally dissimilar, 

 rarely double, the inner then of 4-5 small scale-like, or very rarely 

 conspicuous petals. Male flowers: Torus sometimes forming an 

 intra-staminal disk or with disk-glands or -lobes alternate with the 

 stamens of the outer series. Stamens various, sometimes solitary or 

 fewer than, sometimes as many as the sepals or petals, sometimes 

 indefinite (rarely very numerous) ; filaments free or connate ; anthers 

 2-celled, often didynious with longitudinal, transverse or porous 

 dehiscence. Rudimentary ovary present or 0. Female elowers : 

 Se])als usually larger and less connate than in the male. Petals some- 

 times smaller and less often present than in the male. Disk hypogynous 

 or of discrete glands or 0. Ovary superior, sessile or stipitate, usually 

 of 3 (rarely more or 2) carpels more or less united ; ovules 1-2 in each 

 carpel, ])endulous from the inner angle of the cell, the funicle often 

 thickened ; styh.'S as many as the carpels, free or united or entire or 

 divided ; stigmatic surface usually on the inner face of the styles or 

 style-arms. Fruit usually a capsule of three 2-valved 1-2-seeded cocci 

 separating from a persistent axis, or a drupe w-ith 1-3 cells or of one 

 or more combined nuts. Seeds laterally attached at or above the middle 

 of the cells, with or without an aril or caruncle at the hilum ; albumen 

 fleshy ; embryo straight, enclosed in the albumen ; cotyledons flat, leafy, 

 and radicle superior; rarely albumen and cotyledons fleshy. — Distrib. 

 Chiefly tropical, rare in cold countries ; genera 200 ; species about 3000. 



Fluwersaggregate-moncecious ill lieads resembling single llowprs 

 consisting (jf a calyx-like involucre enclosing several (lowers 

 without i)crianlhs, viz. many males, each consisting of a 

 solitary pedicellate stamen, surroimding a single central 

 female consisting of a single 3-carpellary pistil 1. EuniORniA. 



