590 



A TEXT-BOOK OF BOTANY. 



m. EUPHORBIACE^ OR SPURGE FAMILY.— The 

 plants are herbs, shrubs or trees with acrid and often milky 

 latex. The fruit is mostly a trilocular, dehiscent capsule ; the seeds 

 are anatropous and have an oily endosperm. 



Fig. 327. StilUngia sylvatica: showing the more or less closely arranged leaves 

 and the terminal spike of flowers. — After Bentley and Trimen. 



StilUngia sylvatica or Queen's-Root yields the official Stillingia 

 (Fig. 327). The plant is a perennial herb about i M. high and 

 diffusely branched. The leaves are obovate, short-petiolate, with 

 glandular-serrate margin ; the flowers are in terminal spikes, light 

 yellow, monoecious, the staminate being above and the pistillate 

 below, the latter solitary in the axils of the lower bractlets. 



