112 EUPHORBIA COROLLATA. FLOWERING SPURGE. 



benefit of the lover of wild flowers, that the pretty blossoms 

 which he admires are not flowers at all ; that is to say, the white 

 structures are not petals, as in ordinary flowers, but merely 

 bracts. It is some comfort to know that the great Linnaeus 

 thought they were true perianths, and that he placed the plant 

 in his sexual class, Enneandria, as a single flower, having nine 

 stamens. But really each stamen represents a single flower, as 

 a close examination will show. The stamens come out from the 

 axils of little leaves or bracts, each one having its little home to 

 itself. The female flower is simply an ovary on a short stalk, 

 and occupies the central place in this curious specimen of in- 

 florescence. The flowers are, therefore, monoecious, or in other 

 words, the male and female flowers are separate, although the 

 petal-like semblance of the involucral bracts imparts to the whole 

 the appearance of a seemingly regular hermaphrodite flower. 

 This leafy or bract-like character of these appendages may be 

 better understood by examining the common green-house Poin- 

 setta, from Mexico, the scarlet bracts of which are so often found 

 among cut flowers. 



The Euphorbia corollata, or Flowering Spurge, is widely dif- 

 fused over the eastern part of the United States, growing (some- 

 times low and spreading, according to Gray, in his " Field, 

 Forest, and Garden Botany ") in open, waste woodlands, and 

 often in badly cultivated fields. It seems to have its northeast- 

 erly limit in New York, whence it extends across the continent to 

 Nebraska, down to Arkansas, and from there eastward to Florida, 

 thus making a home for itself over a vast extent of territory. 

 We know of no attempt to cultivate it, not even in England, 

 where so much enterprise is shown in getting together pretty 

 flowering things. It is generally in bloom in July and August, 

 and makes a branching stem about two feet high. Our plate, it 

 will be seen, represents only a portion of the panicle. 



