SPURGE FAMILY. 379 



CIV. EUPHORBIACE^l, SPUEGE FAMILY. 



Plants with mostly milky acrid juice and monoecious or 

 dioecious flowers, of very various structure ; the ovary and 

 fruit commonly 3-celled and with single or at most a pair of 

 hanging ovules and seeds in each cell. A large family in warm 

 countries, always difficult for the beginner. The peculiar 

 characters of the flowers are more fully specified in the fol- 

 lowing synopsis. 



* Ovules and seeds only one in each cell. 



+- Flowers, both staminate and pistillate, really destitute both of calyx and corolla ; a 

 pistillate and numerous staminate ones surrounded by a cup-like involucre 

 which imitates a calyx, so that the whole may be taken for one perfect flower. 



1. EUPHOKBIA. These plants may be known, mostly, by having the 3-lobed ovary 



raised out of the cup, on a curved stalk, its 3 short styles each 2-cleft, making 6 

 stigmas. Fruit when ripe bursting into the 3 carpels, and each splitting into 2 valves, 

 discharging the seed. What seems to be a stamen with a jointed filament is really 

 a staminate flower, in the axil of a slender bract, consisting of a single stamen on a 

 pedicel, the joint being the junction. 



+- +- flowers of both kinds provided with a distinct calyx. 



++ Stamens 5 or more. 

 = Flowers in cymose (2-3-forked") panicles ; stamens 10 or more. 



2. JATEOPHA. Fertile flowers in the main forks of the panicle. Calyx colored like a 



corolla, in the sterile flowers mostly salver-shaped and 5-lobed, enclosing 10-30 sta- 

 mens, somewhat monadelphous in two or more ranks ; in the fertile 5-parted. Styles 

 3, united below, once or twice forked at the apex. Pod 8-celled, 3-seeded. Leaves 

 alternate, long-petioled, with stipules. 



= = Flowers in terminal racemes or spikes. 

 I Leaves scarcely or not at all lobed, often entire. 



o Ovary and fruit \-celled. 



8. CKOTONOP8IS. Flowers monoecious, in very small terminal or lateral spikes or clus- 

 ters, the lower ones fertile. Sterile flowers with an equally 5-parted calyx, 5 spatu- 

 late petals, and 5 stamens opposite the petals. Fertile flowers with unequally 

 3-5-parted calyx, petals, but 5 petal-like scales opposite the divisions of the calyx. 



o o Ovary 2-4 (commonly 3-) celled, or rarely \-celled in No. 6. 



4. CROTON. Flowers monoecious or dioecious, generally in racemes or spikes. Sterile 



flowers with a normally 5-parted calyx, as many petals or rudiments as there are calyx 

 lobes and alternating with lobes of the disk, the stamens 5 or more. Fertile flowers 

 with a 5-10-cleft or parted calyx, the petals or very small rudiments. 



5. COBI^EUM. Flowers monoacious. Sterile flowers with a membranaceous 8-6-parted 



calyx, the divisions imbricated and becoming reflexed, five short scale-like petals 

 alternating with as many glands, and many or numerous stamens. Fertile flowers 

 with a 5-cleft calyx but no petals, the ovary surrounded by 5 scales. 



6. ACALYPHA. Flowers in small clusters disposed in spikes, staminate above, fertile at 



base ; or sometimes the two sorts in separate spikes. Calyx of sterile flowers, 4- 

 parted, of fertile 3-5-parted. Stamens 8-16, short, monadelphous at base ; the 2 cells 

 of the anther long and hanging. Styles 3, cut-fringed on the upper face, red. Pod 

 of 3 (rarely 2 or 1) lobes or cells. Fertile flower clusters embraced by a leaf-like cut- 

 lobed bract. Leaves alternate, petioled, with stipules, serrate. 



