EUPHORDIACE.'E. IH 



ccutrul column, and there arc some species of this e;emis where the 

 number of the verticils and their total number may be the same ; 

 but there are some also where three verticils may be counted, and 

 others where the audroceum has only one vei'ticil of three pieces. 

 The perianth too is imbricated and often double, and the leaves arc 

 simple, penniuerved, alternate or sometimes so nearly approaching 

 each other as to represent verticils. 



Cliuitia also forms a small sub-series {Chytlcw). With a parti- 

 cular habit, they have flowers (fig. 172) with 

 double imbricated perianth. The insertion of (^'"'■i'"' p"'^-'"'""- 

 the petals is more or less perigynous. The (^~/%'^r 



isostemonous androceum is formed of pieces 

 borne upon a central column surmounted by a 

 rudiment of a gyna^ceiim. A double or single ly 



disk accompanies it at the base. All the known yj^ j-j. Female flower (>). 

 species of C'hi//fia, frutescent or suffruteseent, 



with alternate, simple, cxstipulatc leaves, inhabit South Africa or the 

 neighbourhood of the Eed Sea, especially Abyssinia and Arabia. 



In the small group Pof/onophorecc, Por/onop/tora, consisting of 

 shrubs and trees of tropical America, has a double imbricated 

 hypogynous perianth, with five fi'ee alternipelatous stamens, and in 

 the female flower a trilocular ovary, suiTounded by a membranous 

 disk. The leaves are simple and alternate. It is the same in 3/iei-o- 

 ik-^/iiis, a nearly allied genus, a native of tropical Western Africa, 

 where an isostemonous species, and of Eastern India, where a diplo- 

 stemonous species is found, furnished with five oppositipetalous 

 stamens smaller than the other five. All are inserted round a riidi- 

 ment of a central gyntecoum, surrounded by an imbricated calyx 

 and an imbricated or contorted corolla. The ovary and the fruit 

 with hard stones have two or three cells. Uicrandra is also very 

 nearly related to Por/onojihora, but the flowers are apetalous and the 

 isostemonous androceum is formed of stamens alternating with the 

 sepals whose filaments are incurved-refracted in the bud. Tt con- 

 sists of Brazilian trees with alternate leaves. Cuniiria^ resembling 

 I'auuodia, Jatroplta, and Mlcrandra^ has the apetalous flowers of 

 tlie latter, but with a diplostemonous androceum without any jJccu- 

 liar curvation of the filaments. The disk of the female flower is 

 suruioinited by six tectli (sfaminodes?), and tlie leaves of tlic only 

 species known inhabithig North Brazil arc; alternate, thick, similar to 

 those of man}- riuttifers. In Mix(:Iioil<ni^ a genus presenting great 



