72 EUPHORBIACEJE. 



Calyx of male flowers open in bud ; 

 leaves alternate ; stamens 2 ; styles 

 free or connate at the base ; fruit a 

 capsule. Trees with monoecious 

 flowers in terminal spikes . . .21. SAPITJM. 



1. EUPHORBIA, Linn.; Fl. Brit. Ind. V, 244. 



Herbs, shrubs or small trees of various habit and provided with 

 copious milky juice. Stems slender and leafy or thick and fleshy, 

 sometimes leafless or nearly so. Leaves alternate or opposite, 

 usually entire. Flowers monoecious, combined in an inflorescence 

 of many male florets surrounding a solitary female, all enclosed 

 within a small 4-5-lobed turbinate or campanulate perianth-like 

 involucre, involucre-lobes with thick glands at the sinuses, glands 

 with often a petaloid spreading white or coloured limb. MALE- 

 flowers composed of a simple pedicelled stamen without floral en- 

 velopes, anthers 2-celled. FEMALE -flowers consisting of a 3-celled 

 pedicelled ovary in the centre of the involucre, also without floral 

 envelopes ; styles 3, free or connate, stigmas simple or 2-fid. Fruit 

 a capsule of three 2-valved cocci separating elastically from a 

 persistent axis and dehiscing ventrally or both ventrally and 

 dorsally. Seeds albuminous ; cotyledons broad, flat. Species 

 about 600, chiefly in subtropical and warm temp, regions. 



Stems not developed above ground ; leaves all 



radical. A dwarf perennial glabrous herb . 1. E. acaulis. 



Stems well developed above ground ; leaves not 

 all radical : 



Shrubs or small trees with thick fleshy and 

 often prickly branches : 

 Branches ascending, armed with pairs of 

 short persistent spines : 

 Style-arms 2-cleft ; branches promi- 

 nently 3-6 -angled ; leaves few, less 

 than 1 in. long, soon falling . . 2. E. antiquorum. 



Style-arms undivided : 



Branches prominently 5-7-angled and 

 with flat intervening spaces ; leaves 

 4-6 in. long . . . . 3. E. Royleana. 



