360 THE BOX-TREE FAMILY. 



2. Sun Spuege — {Euphorbia helioscbpia.') 



Waste and cultivated ground, especially in potato fields. Fl. July 

 — September. Annual. 



Curtis, i. 36 ; E. B. xiii. 883 ; Baxter, v. 308. 

 Called " churn stuff" about Lymm. 



3. DwAEF SFVRGE — {Euphd)-bia exigiia.) 

 Cornfields on a light soil, rare. Ashley. Prestwich. Marple Vale, 



abundant in fields near the river, about a mile on the Stockport side 



of the village. About Leigh, but sparingly. (J. E.) Fl. July. Annual. 



Curtis, ii. 256 ; E. B. xis. 1330. 



4. Horned Spurge — {Euphorbia Peplus.) 

 Waste and cultivated ground, especially in ill-weeded kitchen 

 gardens. Common at Bowdon and Lymm. Fl. July, August. Annual. 

 Curtis, i. 35; E. B. xiv. 959. 



Two Euphorbias are commonly grown in gardens, the "caper spurge" and 

 the " cypress spurge," both reckoned indigenous, the former, botanically called 

 Euphorbia Lathyris, (E. B. xxxii. 2255.) is a stout, bushy biennial, three or four 

 feet high, and very smooth and glaucous in every part. The leaves are naiTOW 

 oblong, the upper ones broader, especially at the base, measuring three or four 

 inches in length, opposite instead of alternate, as in others of the genus, and 

 disposed in four vertical rows up the stem. The umbels are composed of three 

 or four long rays ; the seed-capsules are large and smooth. (Fig. 185.) The 

 cypress spurge or Euphorbia Cyparissias, (E. R. xii. 810.) is by no means so 

 handsome a plant. The stems are numerous, ten to fourteen inches high, densely 

 clothed with smooth, entire, linear leaves ; the umbels of many principal branches, 

 with several scattered peduncles below, and along with the foliage, of a yellow hue. 

 The flowers are monoecious. A few other species of the family occur in hot- 

 houses, especially the Euphorbia splcndens, a low-growing plant with stiff thick 

 stems, covered over the whole surface with long shaq) thorns, and bearing at the 

 summit a few light-green oval leaves, and a cyme of brilliant vermilion blossoms, 

 the colour of which resides in the two-leaved involucre. Next in frequency come 

 the Euplvorbia JacqiiiniJJora, the scarlet racemes of whicli, intermingled with 

 dark-green lanceolate and pendulous leaves, appear at Christmas ; and the 

 Poinsettia pulcherrivia, remarkable for the gorgeous tuft of largj red leaves 

 which crowns the stem, and makes us forget the insignificance of the actual 

 blossoms. Destitute of tlie intense colour of these shewy plants, but quite as 

 pretty in their own way, are the different species of XyUphylla and PhyMnthus, 

 the httle yellowish blossoms of which come out abundantly along the edges of 

 flattened branches that in the liandsomer kinds resemble great pinnate leaves. 

 In good green-houses there are likewise Crotont of different kinds, conspicuous 

 in their variegated and painted foliage. .Such are the Croton pictum. variegatum, 



