DOG’S MERCURY 93 
stamens, jointed, and equal to a stalk bearing a flower reduced to a 
single stamen. In the centre is a single female flower, with a 3-celled 
ovary and 3 styles and 2 stigmas. The stigma ripens first. The 
anthers close in wet weather. 
The capsule has rounded valves, and contains smooth, nearly 
round seeds, slightly acute, which are expelled from the capsule by an 
explosive motion, the carpels opening ventrally and letting the seeds 
fall out. The capsule opens by partitions and loculi as well. 
Wood Spurge is a lime-loving plant, found on lime soil, on the 
chalk, limestone, or oolites. 
It is attacked by a fungus, Exdophyllum Euphorbie. 
A beetle, Aphthona venustula, a Hymenopterous insect, Prosopis 
masont, and a moth, Serzcorzs euphorbiana, are found on the Wood 
Spurge. 
Euphorbia, Dioscorides, is from Euphorbus, physician to Juba, 
King of Mauretania, and the second Latin name refers to the almond- 
shaped leaves. 
This plant is called Deer's Milk, Devil’s Milk, Mare’s Tail, and 
Wood Spurge. It is known as Devil’s Milk because it was supposed 
to be associated with the Evil One. 
The juice is acrid, causing ulceration wherever applied. It has 
been applied externally to warts or corns, and to hollow teeth, to 
remove the pain and destroy the nerve, or in earache behind the ears, 
causing blistering. 
EssENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS :— 
274. Euphorbia amygdaloides, L.—Stem erect, leafy, glabrous, 
purple below, leaves obovate, entire, alternate, flowers in umbels, with 
rounded connate bracts. 
Dog’s Mercury (Mercurialis perennis, L.) 
This common hedgerow plant is found in Interglacial beds in 
Sussex, and Neolithic beds in Essex and Edinburgh. To-day it is 
found in the N. Temperate Zone in Europe and N. Africa. In Great 
Britain it is absent in Hunts, Cardigan, S. Lincs, Mid Lancs, Isle of 
Man, E. Sutherland, Hebrides, Shetlands, but elsewhere general north- 
wards to the Orkneys, up to 1700 ft. in the Highlands. It is native 
in Ireland and the Channel Islands. 
What exactly are the requirements of this plant are somewhat 
puzzling, for it is absent in the same district from large areas which 
possess the same characteristics of shade which it requires; but it is 
