EUPHORBIA. 



Mogadore Euphorbium is obtained, is a species nearly related to this. 

 Mr. Jackson's account of the plant is this : " Its stem is at first soft 

 and succulent, but after some years becomes hard ; the branches are 

 scalloped, and have on their sides small knots, from which grow 5 

 extremely sharp-pointed thorns, about % of an inch in length. The 

 branchlets bear each on its top a vivid crimson flower. The general 

 form of the plant, with its branches, is that of a goblet." Med. 

 Gaz. xx. 745. 



2. SPECIES WITH PERMANENT CONSPICUOUS LEAVES. 



399. E. Ligularia Roxb. fl. ind. ii. 465. Ligularia Rumph. iv. 

 t. 4-0. Bengal, and the Indian Archipelago. 



Trunk when old about 20 feet high and 1 foot in diameter. Branches 

 succulent, 5-sided, angled, with the angles divided into coarse teeth 

 armed with a pair of short hard black spines. Leaves alternate, about 

 the summits of the branches, short-stalked, inserted singly on the teeth 

 of the branches, wedge-shaped, entire, waved, fleshy, smooth on both 

 sides, almost veinless, from 6 to 12 inches long, and 2 or 3 broad, 

 deciduous. Peduncles solitary in the sinuses between the teeth of the 

 branchlets, short, once twice or thrice dichotomous, with a sessile 

 flower in the forks, that is, bearing 3, 7, or 15 flowers. The sessile 

 flower which is the largest, is often entirely male, the lateral, or ter- 

 minal peduncled ones have always been found to contain 1 pistil, and 

 male florets. Flowers greenish yellow. Bractes reniform, opposite, 

 embracing the base of the pedicels on the outside, withering. Involucre 

 with 5 round-cordate fringed lobes, with a finely ragged margin. 

 Root mixed with black pepper used in India as a cure for the bite of 

 the rattlesnake. 



400. E. nereifolia Linn. sp. pi. 648. Willd. ii. 884. Roxb. 

 fl. ind. ii. 467. (Rheede ii. t. 43.) Dry barren hills in 



India. 



A tree of small stature ; branches round, armed with stipulary spines. 

 Leaves subsessile, wedge-shaped. Peduncles 3-flowered. Roxburgh 

 considers this and the last to have been confounded by botanists, and 

 gives the above as a discriminating character of the present species. 

 Juice of the leaves prescribed by Indian native practitioners internally 

 as a purge and deobstruent, and externally, mixed with Margosa oil, 

 in such cases of contracted limbs as are induced by ill-treated rheumatic 

 affections. The leaves no doubt diuretic. Ainslie. 



401. E. Gerardiana Jacq. fl. austr. v. t. 4366. Roper, 

 euphorb. 65. E. Cajogala Ehr.beitr.u. 102. E. linariaefolia 

 Lam. enc. ii. 102. E. glaucescens Willd. enum. suppl. 28. 

 Middle Germany, and Hungary. 



Root perennial. Leaves membranous, rigid, lanceolate, sessile, 

 acute or obtusish, mucronate, entire, smooth. Flowering branches 

 collected under the whorl into a multifid false umbel, or arranged in a 

 5-cleft whorl. Lobes of the involucre obtusely triangular. Ovaries 

 convex at back, smooth, beset with elevated minute points. Seeds 

 obovate-cylindrical, smooth, opaque, whitish. Bark of the root ca- 

 193 o 



