A Rronvus. ] EUPHORBIACEE. — 113 
R. communis, Linn., Roxb. Fl. Ind. tii, 689; Royle Ill. 328 ; 
Brandis For. Fl. 445 ; Ind. Trees 593 ; DC. L’ Orig. Pl. Cult. 339 ; 
Duthie and Fuller F. and G. Crops ti, 38, t. 43; F. B. I. v, 457 ; 
Watt E. D.; Comm. Prod. Ind., 915 ; Gamble Man. 622 ; Prain 
Beng. Pl. 952 ; Cooke Fl. Bomb. ii, 627.—Vern. Arand, etc.—The 
Castor-oil plant, or Palma Christi. ae 
The Castor-oil plant is much cultivated within the area of this flora 
and throughout the hotter parts of India. It frequently runs wild, 
and in many places has become naturalized. The tall perennial 
bushy kind is often grown in hedges, or in fields as a shelter for 
other crops. In order to obtain oil of the best quality the plant is 
usually grown as an annual, and often as a pure crop. The oil is 
largely used for burning and as a lubricant, and (when cold-drawn) for 
medicinal purposes. The plant is much cultivated in gardens for the 
sake of the brightly coloured foliage of some of its varieties. For 
full particulars regarding its cultivation in India, and the extraction 
and the various uses of the oil see Watt’s ““ Commercial Products of 
India.” 
20. TRAGIA, Linn. ; Fl. Brit. Ind. v, 464. 
Perennial usually twining or climbing herbs, hispid with stinging 
hairs. Leaves alternate, simple or palmately 3-lobed, serrate, 
3-5-nerved at the base. Flowers moneecious, in terminal and leaf- 
opposed androgynous racemes, apetalous and without any disk ; 
the males uppermost in the raceme, females below and few. MALE 
flowers: Calyr globose or obovoid, valvately 3-5-partite. 
Stamens 1-3, rarely many, filaments free or connate ; anthers ovate 
or oblong, cells parallel and contiguous. Pistillode minute, 3-fid. 
ornone. Frm. flowers: Sepals 6, imbricate, entire or pinnatifid, 
often enlarged, hardened and stellately spreading in fruit. Ovary 
3-celled ; styles united below in a stout column, free spreading and 
entire above ; ovules solitary in each cell. Fruit a capsule of three 
2-valved cocci, endocarp crustaceous. Seeds globose, testa crusta- 
ceous, albumen fleshy, cotyledons broad and flat.—Species about 
50, chiefly tropical. 
A twining herb; leaves simple ; style circin- 
nately revolute ‘ . ; , . 1. Z tnvolucrata. 
An erect or sometimes climbing herb ; leaves 
palmately 3-partite ; styles siightly spreading, 
not revolute . ¢ i f 2. 7. cannabina. 
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