EUPHORBIACE^E. (SPURGE FAMILY.) 459 



at the apex. Pert. Fl. Calyx unequally 3 - 5-parted. Petals none. Glands 

 (petal-like scales) 5, opposite the sepals. Ovary 1 -celled, simple, 1-ovuled, bear- 

 ing a twice or thrice forked style. Fruit dry and indehiscent, small, 1 -seeded. 

 Seed without caruncle. A slender low annual, with alternate or opposite 

 short-petioled linear or elliptical-lanceolate leaves, which are green and smooth - 

 ish above, but silvery hoary with starry hairs and scurfy with brownish scales 

 underneath, as well as the branches, etc. ( Croton and otyis, appearance, for a 

 plant with the aspect and general character of Croton.) 



1. C. linearis, Michx. Dry sandy soil, N. J. to Fla., west to 111. and 

 Kan. July - Sept. Fruit about \" long. 



7. ARGYTHAMNIA, P.Browne. 



Flowers mono3cious. Calyx 5-parted, valvate in the staminate flowers, im- 

 bricate in the pistillate. Petals alternate with the calyx-lobes and with the 

 prominent lobes of the glandular disk. Stamens 5-15, united into a central 

 column in 1 -3 whorls. Styles 1 - 3-cleft. Capsule depressed, 3-lobed. Seeds 

 subglobose, roughened or reticulated, not carunculate. Erect herbs or uuder- 

 shrubs, with purplish juice, and alternate usually stipulate leaves. ( Name from 

 Hpyvpos, silver, and ed^vos, bush, from the hoariness of the original species. ) 



1 . A. mercurialina, Muell. Stem erect, nearly simple (1-2 high), seri- 

 ceous; leaves sessile, oblong-ovate to lanceolate, entire, pubescent with ap- 

 pressed hairs or glabrate, somewhat rigid ; raceme many -flowered, exceeding 

 the leaves ; ovary sericeous ; capsule appressed-pubescent. Kan. to Ark. and 

 Tex. 



8. ACALYPHA, L. THREE-SEEDED MERCURY. 



Flowers monoecious ; the sterile very small, clustered in spikes, with the few 

 or solitary fertile flowers at their base, or sometimes in separate spikes. Calyx 

 of the sterile flowers 4-parted and valvate in bud ; of the fertile, 3 - 5-parted. 

 Corolla none. Stamens 8 - 16 ; filaments short, monadelphous at base ; anther- 

 cells separate, long, often worm-shaped, hanging from the apex of the filament. 

 Styles 3, the upper face or stigmas cut-fringed (usually red). Capsule separ- 

 ating into 3 globular 2-valved carpels, rarely of only one carpel. Herbs (ours 

 annuals), or in the tropics often shrubs, resembling Nettles or Amaranths ; the 

 leaves alternate, petioled, with stipules. Clusters of sterile flowers with a mi- 

 nute bract ; the fertile surrounded by a large and leaf -like cut-lobed persistent 

 bract. ('AKaA.^<r?, an ancient name of the Nettle.) 



* Fruit smooth or merely pubescent; seeds nearly smooth. 



1. A. Virginica, L. Smoothish or hairy (1-2 high), often turning 

 purple ; leaves ovate or oblong-ovate, obtusely and sparsely serrate, long-peti- 

 oled ; sterile spike rather few-flowered, mostly shorter than the large leaf-like 

 palmately 5 - 9-cleft fruiting bracts ; fertile flowers 1 - 3 in each axil. Fields 

 and open places, N. Eng. to Ont. and Minn., south to the Gulf. July - Sept. 



Var. gracilens, Muell. Leaves lanceolate or even linear, less toothed and 

 shorter-petioled ; the slender sterile spike often V long, and much surpassing 

 the less cleft or few-toothed fruiting bracts. Sandy dry soil, R. I. and Conn, 

 to Fla., west to 111., E. Kan. and Tex. 



