EUPHORBIACE^E. 



The herb dried and salted was preserved by the ancient Greeks as a 

 powerful purge. 



410. E. corollata Linn. sp. pi. 658. Bigel. med. bot. iii. t. 53. 



Dry fields in the United States. 



Root large, branching. Stems numerous, from 2 to 5 feet in height, 

 erect, round, and in most instances simple. Leaves scattered, sessile, 

 oblong, obovate or linear, a little revolute at the margin, smooth in 

 some plants, very hairy in others. Umbel 5-rayed, supported by as many 

 bracteal leaves. Not unfrequently a small axillary branch or two arise 

 from the sides of the stem below the umbel. Rays of the umbel 

 repeatedly trifid or dichotomous, each fork being attended by 2 leaflets 

 and a flower. Involucre large, rotate, white, with 5 obtuse petal-like 

 segments ; alternate segments 5, very small, obtuse. A great portion 

 of the plants are wholly staminiferous. A good emetic, in the opinion 

 of Dr. Zollickoffer of Baltimore, not inferior to Ipecacuanha ; it is 

 also an expectorant and cathartic. The bruised root when recent 

 excites inflammation and vesication. 



411. E. linearis Retz. called Erva do Andourinha in Brazil. 

 The milky juice is employed for syphilitic ulcers. Martius 

 says it is singular that there is a notion throughout Brazil, that 

 this juice dropped into a fresh wound in the apple of the eye, 

 immediately effects a cure. We were often assured, that this 

 experiment had been tried with success upon fowls. 



PEDILANTHUS. 



Common involucre slipper-shaped. $ . Several in the cir- 

 cumference. Pedicels bracteolate, each articulated with a naked 

 anther. ? . One in the centre. Calyx 0. Style 1 . Stigmas 

 3. Capsules 3-coccous. A. de J. 



412. P. tithymaloides Poit. ann. mus. xix. 388. t. 19. Kunth 

 synops.\. 391. Bot. Reg.t. 837 Euphorbia tithymaloides Linn, 

 sp. pi. 649. Jacq. amer. 149. t. 92. E. myrtifolia Lam. enc. 

 ii. 416. (Comm. hort. i. t. 16.) Various parts of the West 

 Indies in stony bushy places, near the coast. (Jew bush.) 



A shrub throwing out runners, erect, about 6 feet high, abounding 

 in white bitter milk. Stems numerous, weak, soft, as thick as the 

 finger, when old cinereous, when young green. Leaves ovate, obtuse 

 or acute, coriaceous, entire, alternate, stalked, distichous, when young 

 downy on each side, and wavy at the edges j becoming at last quite 

 smooth and flat. Peduncles 1-flowered, short, clustered about the 

 extremities of the branches. Involucre slipper-shaped, bright red, with 

 a green back. The practitioners of Cura9ao give a decoction of the 

 whole plant, especially of the stem, as the ordinary beverage, and in 

 arbitrary doses, to patients with venereal complaints. The American 

 women also employ it in suppression of the menses. The plant is 

 moreovenknown and used as Ipecacuanha. 



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