Classification of Plants 



237 



be absent. The fruit is a 3-celled capsule, which often bursts 

 with an explosion and scatters the seed. 



Euphorbia is the most familiar genus of the order. Like 

 the Cactus plant, the stem may be reduced to a roundish or 

 club-shaped body, with leaves reduced to spines. What at 



^ 



Fig. 238. — Evphoybia lathyris. I. Part of a plant. II. Inflorescence. III. Male 

 flower Cmagnified). (From Thome and Bennett's " Structural and Physiological 

 Botany.") 



first seems to be a single flower is an inflorescence consisting 

 of a group of staminate flowers and a single pistillate flower. 

 The pistillate flower is raised on a stalk, and is reduced to an 

 ovary. Each staminate flower is also raised on a little stalk or 

 pedicel, and consists of one single stamen. The central stamens 

 ripen first. The whole inflorescence is surrounded by a 



