239 CROTON TIGLIUM 



long white hairs above, glabrous beneath, pale green ; a promi- 

 nent roundish yellow gland stands within each sepal, alter- 

 nating with the petals ; stamens 14 20, as long as the petals, 

 one opposite each petal and sepal, the remainder irregularly dis- 

 persed over the receptacle, which is covered with short white 

 hairs, anthers small, broad, innate, cells semilunar. Female 

 flower; calyx deeply 5-partite, divisions ovate, acute, spreading 

 or reflexed, set with few or more numerous stellate hairs and 

 with a small rounded prominence in the angle between each ; 

 glands 5, blunt, prominent, opposite the sep., as in the male 

 flowers ; petals round ; ovary sessile, thickly covered with 

 stellate hairs, 3-celled, with a single pendulous ovule in each; 

 styles 3, deeply bifid. Fruit about the size of a hazel-nut, slightly 

 inflated, pale, smooth, brownish-yellow, capsular, 3-celled, with 

 a single large seed in each cell ; dehiscing septicidally into 

 3 cocci, and afterwards loculicidally. Seeds nearly \ an inch long 

 by about |ths wide, ovoid, rounded on the back, marked on the 

 ventral surface by a fine raised raphe ; testa thin, brittle, light 

 brown, black within; embryo with large foliaceous cotyledons, 

 lying in the centre of the oily endosperm. 



Habitat. The croton oil plant is common throughout the 

 Indian Peninsula, both wild and cultivated; it also grows in 

 Ceylon, Borneo, and the Philippines, and as an introduced tree 

 in Mauritius and Japan. It was first cultivated in this country 

 in 1798, and is now to be seen in many botanic gardens, though 

 it rarely flowers. 



Marchand in Adansonia, i, p. 232; Miill. Arg., 1. c., p. 600; 

 Roxb., Fl. Ind., iii, p. 682; F. Hamilton in Trans. Linn. Soc., 

 vol. xiv, p. 258. 



Official Parts and Names. OLEUM CEOTONIS. The oil expressed 

 from the seeds (B. P.) The seeds (Grotonis semina) (I. P.) 

 OLEUM TIGLII. The fixed oil obtained from the seed (U. S. P.) 



General Characters and Composition of Croton Seeds. The 

 croton seeds of commerce are about the size of coffee beans, oval 

 in shape and imperfectly quadrangular in form. The testa is of a 

 dark cinnamon-brown colour on the surface, but when scraped it 



