CHAP. XCIX. EUPHORBIA CE. EUPHO/RBIA. 1331 
smooth, stalked, opposite, entire leaves. Flowers aggregate, from axillary 
buds, whitish. Fruit green, (Smith Eng. F1., iv. p. 132.) 
Genus I. 
| 
EUPHO’RBIA L. Tue Evpnorsia, or SpurcE. Lin. Syst. Monce‘cia 
Monandria, 
Identification. Lin. Gen., 243. ; Lam. Ill, t. 411.; Smith Eng. F1., 4 p. 58. 
Synonymes. Tith¥malus Tourn. Inst.,t. 18., Gertn. Fruct., t. 107. ; Euphorbe, Fr, ; Wolfsmilch, Ger. 
Derivation. From Euphorbus, physician to Juba, king of Mauritania, who is said first to have used 
some of the plants of this genus in medicine. 
Description, §c. This genus consists of milky plants, most of which are herb- 
aceous, but two or three of which are rather woody. The flowers of the hardy 
kinds are generally of a greenish colour, which renders them inconspicuous ; 
and they have all an extremely acrid juice, which has the appearance of milk, 
This juice was formerly considered medicinal, and is still used occasionally to 
destroy warts, or for raising slight blisters. The plants are propagated by 
division. The only two worth cultivating, as shrubby, appear Ane 
to us to be the Z. Characias L. and £. spinosa L. ¥ 
« E. Gharacias L., Mart. Mill., No. 95., Smith Eng. FL, 
iv. p. 68., Eng. Bot., t. 442.; E. aléppica of some gardens; 
and our fig. 1212. — An upright, bushy, leafy plant, green in 
its foliage, and purplish brown in the bark of its shoots, 
which are mostly unbranched, The flowers are in stalked 
panicles a few in each panicle, and the panicles are disposed 
racemosely along the upper portions of the shoots. The 
more obviously coloured part of the inflorescence is of a dark 
purple. The scent of the flowers is powerfully fetid and & 
disagreeable. The plant, in a sheltered nook, under a wall, 
will attain to the height of 3 ft. or more (in Martyn’s Miller, 
5 ft. or 6 ft.); and is interesting, even when not in flower, 
from its being evergreen, and from the character of its fo- 
liage ; the leaves being lanceolate, acute, entire, downy, dark 
green, and spreading every way. (Smith Eng. Fl., and obser- 
vation.) It is indigenous in France, Spain, and Italy, accord- 
ing to Willd. Sp, Pl.; and, according to Mr. Whately, as 
quoted in Eng. Fl., it is very plentiful in the Forest of ee 
Needwood, Staffordshire, and undoubtedly wild there. A plant which we 
have had in our garden, at Bayswater, since 1828, was found wild by us, in 
the July of that year, in a wood belonging to John Perry, Esq., ; 
at Stroud House, near Hazlemere. It forms a dense evergreen 
bush, admirably adapted for rockwork; its fine, dark, bluish 
green, shining leaves, with which the shoots are densely clothed, 
render it highly ornamental at every season of the year; and its 
flowers, which appear in February, continue on the plant through 
the spring and part of the following summer. 
E. spinosa L.,Wats. Dend, Brit., t. 45, and our fig. 1209.— A 
leafy, shrubby plant; anative of the south of Europe; generally 
kept in green-houses in Britain, where it assumes the character 
of an erect shrub, about 2 ft. high, with a decidedly ligneous 
stem. The tips of the branches become dry with age, and as, 
though withered, they continue on the plant, they have the ap- 
pearance of spines. It was cultivated by Miller, in 1752, but is 
rare in British collections, In the open air, in the Botanic 
Garden at Cambridge, it is a recumbent shrub. It is not easily 
propagated by cuttings made in the common way, but is said to 
grow readily from cuttings of the roots. 
4s 3 
= 
