136 FOUNDATIONS OF BOTANY 
I. EUPHORBIA, L. 
Herbs or shrubs, with milky juice, often poisonous. 
Flowers monecious, enclosed in a 4—5-lobed involucre, which 
is often showy and resembles a calyx or corolla, usually bear- 
ing large glands at its notches. Sterile flowers many, borne 
inside the involucre at its base (Fig. 16, A), each consisting only 
of a single stamen attached by a joint to a pedicel which 
looks like a filament. Fertile flower standing alone at the 
center of the involucre (Fig.16, C) (soon pushed out by the 
growth of its pedicel), consisting only of a 3-lobed and 
3-celled ovary, 3 2-cleft styles, and 6 stigmas. Pod 3-celled 
and 3-seeded. 
A. Cultivated shrubs. 
1. E. splendens, Bojer. Crown or TuHorns. An extremely 
prickly shrub, with many erect, few-leaved branches. Leaves 
obovate or obovate-spatulate, mucronate, entire, each with two very 
sharp prickles (longer than the petiole) as stipules. Peduncles long, 
sticky, each bearing 2—4 objects, which appear to be showy scarlet 
flowers, but which are actually 2-bracted involucres containing the 
true flowers. Involucral scales somewhat kidney-shaped, mucronate. 
Flowering all the year round. Cultivated in greenhouses. From 
Mauritius. 
B. Herbs with rather showy white flower-clusters. 
2. E. corollata, L. FLowrerInGc SpurGe. Perennial. Stem 
erect, umbellately branched above, smooth or downy, 1-3 ft. high. 
Leaves of the stem alternate, those of the branches usually opposite 
or whorled, rather thick, oval to narrowly oblong, pale beneath, 
usually slightly downy. Flowering branches repeatedly forked; 
involucres terminal and in the forks of the branches, peduncled; 
glands 4—5, oblong, green ; appendages white and petal-like, showy. 
Capsule erect, seed smooth or faintly pitted. Common in dry, open 
woods. 
C. Herbs: No. 3 a native species, No. 4 cultivated from Europe or 
escaping from gardens. Flower-clusters in umbels not white. Involucre 
4 or 5 lobed, each lobe with a gland. 
3. E. dictyosperma, Fischer and Mayer. Annual. Stem slender, 
8-18 in. high, erect. Stem-leaves oblong-spatulate to obovate, ser- 
rate ; floral ones roundish-ovate, somewhat heart-shaped. Flower-. 
cluster a compound umbel, the rays once or twice 3-forked, then 
2-forked. Seeds covered with a network. Prairies and roadsides. 
