EUPHORBIACE^E 653 



raised and rounded on the upper side, and slender primary veins remote, arcuate, and united 

 at some distance from the margins and connected by conspicuous coarsely reticulate veinlets 

 more prominent on the upper than on the lower side; their petioles elongated, slender, 

 rigid, light yellow, rounded below, obscurely grooved above, marked at the apex by large or- 

 bicular dark red glands; stipules ovate-lanceolate, abruptly narrowed from a broad base, 

 slightly laciniate near the apex, membranaceous, light chestnut-brown, caducous. Inflo- 

 rescence terminal, spicate, appearing in early spring usually before the unfolding leaves, 

 the stout fleshy rachis often bearing at the base acute sterile deciduous bracts, or 1 or 2 

 small leaves, the minute pistillate flowers solitary in their axils or in the axils of ovate acute 

 lanceolate bracts furnished with 2 lateral glandular bractlets; staminate flowers minute, 

 articulate on slender pedicels clustered in 8-15-flowered fascicles in the axils of simple bracts 

 higher on the rachis and extending to its apex; calyx usually 3-lobed, the lobes imbricated 

 in the bud, that of the staminate flower yellow-green, membranaceous, divided below into 

 3 or sometimes into 2 acute lobes; calyx of the pistillate flower, ovoid, yellow-green, divided 

 nearly to the base into 3 ovate acute concave divisions rounded on the back; stamens 2 or 

 often 3, exserted, more or less connate by their filaments into a stout column, free and spread- 

 ing at apex; anthers ovoid, light yellow, surmounted by the short prolonged connective, at- 

 tached on the back below the middle, erect, extrorse; ovary 6-8-celled, narrowed at base, 

 gradually contracted above into a short simple cylindric style separating into 6-8 long 

 radiating flattened abruptly reflexed lobes stigmatic on the inner face; ovule solitary in 

 each cell. Fruit drupaceous, pome-shaped, obscurely 6-8-lobed, raised on a thickened 

 woody stem; skin thin, light yellow-green or yellow and red; flesh thick, lactescent, ad- 

 herent to the thick-walled rugose deeply w r inged 6-8-celled, 6-8-seeded subglobose stone 

 flattened at the ends, the cells divided throughout by thin dark radial plates, ultimately 

 separable, penetrated near the summit by oblique canals filled by the funicles of the seeds. 

 Seeds oblong-ovoid, marked by a minute slightly elevated hilum and on the ventral face 

 by an obscure raphe; seed-coat membranaceous, separable into 2 layers, the outer dark, 

 the inner thinner, light brown; embryo surrounded by thick fleshy albumen. 



The genus is represented by a single species abounding in exceedingly poisonous caustic 

 sap which produces cutaneous eruptions and when taken internally destroys the mucous 

 membrane; formerly employed by the Caribs to poison arrows. 



The generic name is from I'TTTTOS and pavla, and was first used by the Greeks to distinguish 

 some plant with properties excitant to horses. 



1. Hippomane Mancinella L. Manchineel. 



Leaves 3'-4' long, l^'-2' wide, unfolding in early spring and persistent in Florida until 

 the spring of the following year; petioles 2|'-4' in length. Flowers opening in March 



