natural Fami/i/ of Plants called Compoxifa-. 90 



Upper part of the spike; and this relation also exists in tlio more 

 compound inflorescence o? Riciims, St/phonia, and Cellis, in which 

 the order of expansion is equally inverted. 



It may seem rather paradoxical to select Euphorbia as an ex- 

 ample of the same relation ; this genus being considered by Lin- 

 neus, and the greater part of the botanists who have adopted his 

 sj'stem, as having a dodecandrous hermaphrodite flower. We 

 have already, however, I believe> sufiicient evidence that this sup- 

 posed hermaphrodite flower is in reality formed of several rao- 

 nandrous male flowers surrounding a single female*. 



In conformity with this view of its composition, and with the 

 relation above attempted to be established, the development of 

 the pistillum precedes that of the stamina in many species of the 

 genus. 



• It is more difficult to determine whether this order of expansion 

 and relative position of sexes in Euphorbia be in conformity with 

 the general rule, or an exception to it. For its faciculus of flowers 

 may be considered as analogous either to the simple spike, and. 

 consequently having an inverted order of expansion, as in Allium 

 descendens, and certain species of Grevillea and Anadenia : or it 

 may be assimilated to the compound spike, as in several species 

 of the genus the male flowers appear to be separated into fasciculi ; 



* To the arguments I have adduced (hi my Remarks on the Botany of New HoUaud) 

 in support of this opinion, I am now enabled to add the more direct proof derived from 

 certain species of Euphorbia itself, in which the female flower is furnished with a manifest 

 calyx. I have formerly observed, that in a few cases the footstalk of the ovarium is dilated 

 and obscurely lobed at top : but in the species now referred to it terminates in three di- 

 stinct and equal lobes of considerable length, and which being regularly opposite to the cells 

 of the capsule may be compared to the three outer foliola of the perianthium of Phyllanthus, 

 between which and the cells of the capsule the same relation exists. This calyx is most 

 remarkable in an undescribed species of Euphorbia from the coast of Patagonia, in the 

 Herbarium of Sir Joseph Banks ; but it is observable, though less distinct, in E, punicea 

 and several other species. 



o2 and 



