196 ON THE FLOWERS OF EUPHORBIA AMYGDALOIDES. 
its base, —magnified. Fig. 3. Lower leaf. Fig. d and Fig. 5. P. 
chætial leaves. Fig. 6. decr of peristome. . T. S. calcarea, entire e 
with male flower at its base, and ediate lea = bear ifted. Fig. 8. S. pusilla, 
entire plant and its male flower, with an beeihia ES ;—1mnagnifie 
Ff Fig. 9. Stem,—zatural siz Fig. 10, “11. Leaves. 
Fig. 12. Capsule and operculum. Fig. 13. Portion of peristome, —nmagnified. 
Hypnum imponens.—Fig. 14. rp irag size. Fig.l A leat spread out 
from the back of the stem. Fig. 16. One from the side. Fi ^ EO A branch-leaf. 
Fig. 18. Phyllidia. Fig. 19. Perichetium. Fig. 20. Capsule and pain from 
an American Rp :—all magnified. 
SOME REMARKS ON THE FLOWERS OF EUPHORBIA 
AMYGDALOIDES. 
By W. G. Situ, Esq. 
To any one imperfectly acquainted with the genus Euphorbia, the 
statement that each plant of E. amygdaloides bears on au average more 
than 7000 flowers might be sufficiently surprising, but the fact can 
be shown very simply. The plant I have before me, in its early state 
contains 31 flower-heads; but as each of these embrace 30 secondary 
ones, this gives 713, still not flowers but flower-heads. If the in- 
volucral leaves of each secondary flower-head be removed an invo- 
luere will be displayed, containing 12 or 13 distinct flowers ; if the 
former number, 713, be now multiplied by the lower of these two 
figures, viz. 12, it gives 8556 flowers. The remarks I propose making 
refer to these separate, individual flowers, male and female, and their 
arrangement in the involucres, in which my observations, if correct, 
render the descriptions of the genus Euphorbia, as applied to this 
species in all our local Floras and general systematic works incorrect. 
The observations I have myself made on a large number of plants, 
slightly disagree with these descriptions, but it will be seen that 
this slight difference proves to be of importance. The descriptions 
perfectly agree with the plant in its more advanced stage, when 
the peduncles begin to be branched, and when the flowers are consi- 
dered perfect,—this is how the plant is always drawn, and how it is 
gathered for the herbarium; but in this state it is imperfect, and has 
lost a single flower-head from each peduncle, so that whilst in the first 
stage it really has 8556 flowers, it has in the second only 8484, or 
