DICOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS 135 
2. P. Senega, L. SenecA SNAKEROOT. A perennial herb, with 
several erect stems arising from stout, hard, knotty rootstocks. 
Leaves lanceolate, oblong or lance-ovate, sessile. Flowers all alike, 
small, white, in solitary close spikes. Rocky woods. 
53. EUPHORBIACEZ. SpurGce FAMILY. 
Herbs, shrubs, or trees, usually with a milky, more or less 
acrid and sometimes poisonous juice. Flowers mostly apeta- 
lous, moneecious or dicecious (Fig. 16). Ovary usually 3-celled, 
with 1 or 2 ovules in each cell; stigmas as many as the 
A B C 
Fie. 16.— Luphorbia corollata. 
A, flower-cluster with involucre, the whole appearing like a single flower; B, a 
single staminate flower ; C, immature fertile flower, as seen after the removal of 
the sterile flowers ; i, involucre; s, stigmas. 
cells or twice as many. Fruit a 3-lobed capsule. Seeds con- 
taining fleshy or oily endosperm (Part I, Fig. 2). Most of 
the family are natives of hot regions, many of them of pecu- 
lar aspect from their adaptation to life in dry climates. 
[The family is too difficult for the beginner in botany to 
determine many of its genera and species with certainty, but 
a few are described below. | 
