310 FLORA OF JAMAICA Manihot 



The material left in the press is pounded and dried on hot iron plates, 

 forming cassava meal, which is made into cakes. Pure cassava starch is 

 a valuable commercial article used in Manchester goods. Moistened and 

 dried on hot plates it forms tapioca. The juice of the bitter cassava 

 heated to get rid of the poisonous principle, is an antiseptic, the basis of 

 many sauces, and boiled with peppers and meat forms " pepper-pot." See 

 also Barham, Hortus Americanus, 34 ; Watt Diet. Econ. Prod. Ind. & 

 Comm. Prod. Ind. ; Bull. 3ot. Dept. Jam. n.s. ix. 81 (1902) ; Bull. Dept. 

 Agriculture, Jamaica i. 35 (1903), & n.s. i. 53, ii. 186.] 



18. JATROPHA L. 



Tall herbs, or shrubs, rarely arborescent. Leaves alternate, 

 undivided or (sometimes in the same plant) digitately lobed or 

 cleft; segments 3 to numerous, margin entire or wavy or 

 pinnately lobed. Stipules small or cut up into threads. Flowers 

 monoecious, with petals in Jamaican species, numerous in 

 terminal, corymb-like panicles regularly forked, the female 

 flowers solitary in the primary forks. Male flowers : Calyx, 

 segments or lobes 5, imbricate. Petals 5, contorted-imbricate, 

 united into 5-l6bed corolla, or distinct, or wanting if the calyx is 

 petaloid. Disk entire or of five glands. Stamens 10 or fewer, 

 attached to the receptacle in two or several series ; filaments, at 

 any rate the interior, more or less united into a column, the 

 5 exterior opposite the petals. No rudiment of an ovary. 

 Female flowers : Calyx like that of the male. Petals present in 

 Jamaican species, sometimes wanting in others. Ovary generally 

 2-3-celled ; styles united at the base, divided each into two 

 stigmatic lobes or branches ; ovules solitary. Capsule splitting 

 up into two or three 2-valved cocci. Seeds carunculate. 



Species about 150, natives of the tropics, especially in 

 America, but extending also into North America and southern 

 Africa. 



Inflorescence corymbose cymes. 



Leaves not lobed or slightly lobed, widely 



cordate 1. J. curcas. 



Leaves divided below the middle into 5-3 



obovate-ellipticallobes 2. J. gossypifolia. 



Leaves with lanceolate lobed divisions reaching 



nearly to the base 3. J.multifida. 



[Leaves peltate, divided halfway or less into 



3-6 roundish lobes J. podagrica.] 



Inflorescence repeatedly two-forked. 



Branches of fork diverging. Leaves not peltate 4. J. divaricata. 

 Branches of fork not diverging. Leaves peltate 5. J. hernandimfolia. 



1. J. cureas L. Sp. PI. 1006 (1753) & Amoen. v. 383 ; leaves 

 not, or slightly, lobed, roundish-ovate, apex acute, base widely 

 cordate, entire, glabrous or sometimes puberulous at the base 

 beneath, ' 5-1 • 5 dm. 1., lobes acute to rounded ; cymes coi'ymbose. 



