Slmmondsia. EUPHORBIACE.E. 



67 



1. SIMMONDSIA, Nutt. 

 Perianth 5- (rarely 4- or 6-) parted. Stamens 10 or 12, with very short filaments 

 on a raised receptacle. Ovary ovate, acuminate, 3-celled, with 3 linear reflexed 

 central styles ; ovules solitary. Fruit by abortion usually 1-celled and 1-seeded. 

 Seed exalbuminous, with thiu brown testa. Cotyledons thick and fleshy, coherent ; 

 radicle minute. — A low diffusely branched shrub, with opposite entire leaves ; stam- 

 inate flowers clustered upon short axillary peduncles or in short terminal com- 

 pound racemes, the pisillate axillary and solitary. 



1. S. Californica, Nutt. Younger branches, leaves and calyx covered Avith 



a sliort UKirc or less dense simple pubescence: leaves oblongdanceolate, acutish 

 at each end, sessile or very shortly petioled, 1 to 1-|- inches long and usually exceed- 

 ing the internodes : peduncles with 2 to 4 linear or lanceolate bractlets, in fruit 

 deflexed and a half inch long or less : sepals in staminate flowers obovate, 1 ^- lines 

 long, in the fertile flowers oblongdanceolate, 6 to 9 lines long : ovary glabrous : 

 styles 2 or 3 lines long : capsule coriaceous, ovate, obtusely 3-angled and somewhat 

 beaked, 9 lines long, filled by the large puberulent seed. — Hook. Loud. Journ. 

 Bot. iii. 400, t. 16 ; Torrey, Bot. Mex. Bound. 202, t. 49 ; Mull. Arg. in DC. Prodr. 

 xvi'. 23. Baxus Chinensis, Link, Enum. ii. 38G. Celustrus ohtusata, Presl, Bot. 

 Bemerk. 34. Brocckia dlchotoma, Mauri, Cat. Ort. Napol. 1845, 80. 



On dry hillsiJes in Southern California, from San Diego to Eastern Arizona. The species from 

 the Cerros Islands {S. pabulosa, Kellogg), described in Proc. Calif. Acad. ii. 21, is apparently the 



Order LXXXVII. EUPHORBIACE^. 



Herbs, shrubs, or trees, with milky acrid juice, monoecious or ditecious commoidy 



apetalous and often naked flowers, a free and usually 3-celled ovary, having one 



or a pair of collateral anatropous ovules (solitary in our species) pendulous from the 



summit of each cell, and maturing into a mostly 3-celled and 3-lobed elastically 



dehiscent capsule, the lobes septicidally separating and then loculicidally splitting 



into two valves, leaving a central axis ; the crustaceous seeds with a large and 



straight embryo (having usually broad cotyledons) in the axis of rather scanty 



albumen. Stamens 1 to many. Styles or stigmas as many or twice as many as 



the cells of the ovary. Leaves mostly alternate and simple, often stipulate. 



A huge order, of about 175 genera and over 3,000 species, of tro])ical and temperate regions, 

 a half belonging to tropical America. Some of them are polypetalous or gamopetakius ; others — 

 such as Euphorbia, the largest genus, and the main one in cooler climates — have singuhirly 

 reduced flowers, the staminate consisting of a single stamen, but so collected and masked in an 

 involucre as to imitate a perfect blossom. Many of the species yield medicinal or otherwise use- 

 ful products, some being actively poisonous and others affording wholesome food (as Manioc and 

 Tapioca). The most important in cultivation is the Palma Christi or Castor Oil jdant (liiciiius 

 cojnmnnis, Linn.). The order is sparingly represented in California, much more abundantly in 

 Mexico and the adjoining parts of Arizona and New Mexico. Some additional species will proba- 

 bly be found in the desert portion of San Bernardino and San Diego counties. 



* Both staminate and pistillate flowers usually with a periantli, without an involucre. 

 -i~ Anthers incurved in the bud. 



1. Eremocarpus. Capsule 1-celled, 1-seeded. Flowers in axillary clusters ; the pistillate 



without perianth. A hoary densely stellate-pubescent and liirsute annual. 



2. Croton. Cajisule 3-celled, 3-seeded. Flowers in terminal spike-like racemes ; all calycu- 



late. (Erect gray-scurfy perennials.) 



