SPURGE. MILKWORT. EUPHORBIA. 



SUN SPURGE. Euphorbia heiioscopia. 



Plate 14, fig. 1. 

 Stem simple, ending in five principal branches. 



This is the well-known and common Milkwort, the white 

 juice of which is used so often to cure warts. It is very poi- 

 sonous as is the case with all the Spurges ; indeed all plants 

 which have a colored juice are to be looked at with suspicion 

 being most likely poisonous, some of them stupifying, as the 

 Poppy and the Wild Lettuce, others like the present tribe 

 very inflaming or acrid. A drop of the juice of any of the 

 Spurges will blister the tongue and give a deal of pain, and the 

 eating of a single plant might occasion death. The stem of 

 this species grows a few inches high, and is divided near the 

 top into five branches, each of them with a leaf under it, and 

 spread out, like the spokes of a wheel, or star-like. Leaves 

 rather wedged -shaped, round, and notched at the end. Capsule 

 juicy, smooth, three^seeded. It is abundant in cultivated 

 ground, flowering in July and August. The flowers of all the 

 species are blended together, without separate coverings, and 

 inclosed in a common calyx, often colored, so that each bunch 

 appears like a single flower, of the eleventh class, and in this 

 class the plants were formerly and are sometimes now placed. 



DWARF SPURGE. Euphorbia exigua. 



Plate 14, fig. 2. 

 Stem numerous, ending in three principal branches. 



In corn fields, very common in July and August, and grow- 

 ing from four to six inches high. Leaves small, very narrow, 

 without notches and smooth. Stem much branched at the 

 base, each of the branches divides upwards in three other 

 branches, and so on. Capsules nearly smooth. 



WOOD SPURGE. Euphorbia amygdaloides. 



Plate 14, fig. 3. 

 Stems double (generally) ending in six principal branches. 



Larger and yellower than either of the former, with a stem 

 nearly shrubby at the lower part, and mostly divided near the 

 ground into two stems, which end upwards in about six prin- 

 cipal branches. Leaves hairy beneath, ovate or lance-shaped, 



