CROTON. 



370. C. suberosum HBK. ii. 86. Salt places near Acapulco. 



.Branches corky. Leaves ovate-roundish, acute, cordate, entire, 

 thickish, hoary and downy above, shaggy and white beneath, with no 

 glands. Flowers dioecious. Employed in Peru as an aromatic purgative. 



371. C. balsamiferum Linn. Mant. 125. Jacq. amer. 255. 

 t. 162. f. 3. Common in Tortola, Martinique and Cara9as, on 

 rocky stony cliffs. 



A branched diffuse shrub 3-4 feet high, abounding in every part in a 

 thick balsamic brownish balsam. Branches closely covered with rust- 

 coloured fur. Leaves tomentose, ovate-lanceolate, obtuse, mucronate, 

 slightly cordate, with 2 urceolate glands at the base underneath. Spikes 

 terminal, compact, chiefly male, female at the base. -A spirituous liqueur 

 called Eau de Mantcs,used in irregular menstruation, is distilled from it. 



372. C. perdicipes A. de St. H. pi. us. 59. used in Brazil as a 

 cure for syphilis, and as a useful diuretic. 



373. C. campestris Id. 60. has a purgative root, and is em- 

 ployed in syphilitic disorders. 



*#* Several kinds of Croton, called Orelha d' Onca in Brazil 

 low hairy shrubs, which grow on elevated grassy plains, furnish in 

 their roots a good substitute for Senega. They stimulate and pro- 

 mote the secretions especially of the pituitous membranes. They are 

 administered with success in atonic catarrhs, asthma, and even in phthisis 

 tuberculosa. Martins. 



RICINUS. 



Flowers monoecious. Calyx 3-5-parted, valvate. Petals 0. 

 <y . Filaments numerous, unequally polyadelphous ; cells of the 

 anther distinct, below the apex of the filament. ? . Style short ; 

 stigmas 3, deeply bipartite, oblong, coloured, feathery ; ovary 

 globose, 3-celled, with an ovule in each cell. Fruit generally 

 prickly, capsular, tricoccous. Trees, shrubs, or herbaceous plants 

 sometimes becoming arborescent. Leaves alternate, stipulate, 

 palmate, peltate, with glands at the apex of the petiole. Flowers 

 in terminal panicles, the lower male, the upper female ; all arti- 

 culated with their peduncles, and sometimes augmented by 

 biglandular bracts. A. de J. chiefly. 



374. R. communis Linn, sp.pl. 1430. Roxb.fi. ind. in. 689. 

 Woodv. 171. t. 61. S. and C. i. t. 50. (Rheede ii. t. 32.) 

 Cultivated all over India. 



A glaucous plant, extremely variable in size : when cultivated in Great 

 Britain an annual 3 or 4 feet high ; in India sometimes becoming a pretty 

 large tree "of many years' duration, atleast such is Roxburgh's statement. 

 Clusius saw it in Spain with a trunk as large as a man's body, and 15-20 

 feet high, and Ray found it in Sicily as big as our common alder trees, 

 woody and long lived; but Willdenow considers the arborescent 

 kinds which are more than annual as distinct species, which he calls 

 11. viridis, africanus, lividus and inermis ; they do not appear however to 

 be anything more than mere varieties. Root perennial or annual, 

 long, thick, and fibrous. Stems round, thick, jointed, channelled, 

 183 H 4 



