239 



Ord. EUPHORBIACE.E. 

 Tribe Crotoneee. 

 Genus Croton, Linn. 



239. Croton (Eu-croton) Tiglium,* Linn., Sp. Plant., ed. i, 



p. 1004 (1753). 



Jamalgota. Jepdl. Purging Croton. 



Syn. Tiglium officinale, Klotzsch. Croton Jamalgota, F. Hamilton. 



Figures. Nees, 1. 138 ; Woodville, vol. v ; Hayne, xiv, t. 3 ; Berg & Sch., 

 1. 17 e ; [Steph. & Ch., t. 4, " taken from a drawing in the Medico- 

 Botanical Society in London," can scarcely be this species] ; Burm., 

 Thes. Zeyl., t. 90; Rheede, Malab., pt. ii, t. 33; Marchand in 

 Adansonia,i,t. 9, 10; BaiUon, Hist. PL, v, f. 196202. 



Description. A small tree, 15 20 feet high; trunk rather 

 crooked, with smooth bark ; branches slender, smooth, terete ; 

 bark pale whitish-brown, marked with scars of the fallen leaves. 

 Leaves alternate, on stalks nearly half as long as the blade ; 

 blade about 4J inches long by 2 inches wide when full grown, 

 thin, glabrous, ovate, attenuate at the apex, faintly and rather 

 distantly serrate, pale bright green, veins prominent beneath, 

 petiole breaking up immediately on entering the leaf into 5 veins, 

 the two lateral faint, the two intermediate well marked, giving 

 with the mid-rib a triple-nerved aspect to the leaf; on either side 

 of base of the blade and connected with the petiole is a prominent 

 sessile gland ; stipules minute, filiform, deciduous ; the young 

 leaves and buds with scattered stellate hairs. Flowers in lax, 

 terminal, erect racemes, unisexual ; the male at the upper part of 

 the raceme, the female less numerous at the lower part ; pedicels 

 longer than the flowers ; bracts minute. Male flower : calyx of 

 5 spreading, broadly triangular, blunt sepals, with valvate aestiva- 

 tion; petals 5, inserted on the flat receptacle, alternate with and 

 reflexed between the sepals, oblong-linear, blunt, set with rather 



* The seeds were called Grana Tiglii or Grana Tilli by the pharmacists of 

 the 17th century ; but we do not know the origin of these names. 



