ADDISONIA 3 
(Plate 42) 
TRICHOSTERIGMA BENEDICTUM 
Saint Benedict Spurge 
Native of San Benito Islands, Lower California 
Family EupHORBIACEAE SPuRGE Family 
Euphorbia benedicta Greene, Pittonia 1: 263. 1889. 
Trichosterigma benedictum Millsp 
A low shrub a foot or more high, with abundant milky juice. 
The main stem rises from a deep, fusiform root, and is short and 
stout, an inch or two thick, separating into a few knotted, pongo os 
branches; the whole covered with a close, smooth, shining bark. 
‘The leaves, mostly clustered on the short branchlets, are a inch 
or two long including their petioles; the blades are broadly obcordate 
or at times but slightly notched at the broad apex, up to about an 
inch wide, entire, light green and ee oe eae really 
slightly puberulent under a lens. The “ flowers” are produced 
singly or in groups of two or three from re eile of “the terminal 
leaves; they are borne on Bee Soe up to an inch long; 
the flower-like involucres are composed of atise and showy, cream- 
white, petal-like lobes which ane ae slightly notched at the 
apex and bear each a more or less kidney-shaped, greenish yellow 
gland at the base. The true flowers are represented by a number 
of stamens, with short filaments, surrounded by fascicles of strap- 
shaped bractlets and a single central pistil which soon protrudes 
far beyond the involucral cup and bends gracefully downward with 
the ripening of the fruit; the three styles are connected at the base, 
each divided into two branches above the middle and each branch 
bearing a strongly recurved stigma. e fruit is smooth, pro- 
portionally large, 3-carpelled, the carpels coor, and strongly 
keeled. The seeds are ovoid-globose, blue-gray, deeply and 
rregularly angularly pitted (almost Laeeycombed) and have a 
broad, distinct, deep brown ventral line 
This interesting shrub, very attractive in cultivation, grows only 
upon the islands of the Saint Benedict group, four miles in extent, 
lying some twenty miles seaward from the northern end of Cedros 
Island off the coast of Lower California. The plant was first 
brought to notice by Lieutenant Charles T. Pond of the U. S. 5S. 
Ranger, in 1889. The shrub abounds in milky juice which flows 
instantly from the slightest wound of any part of the plant The 
stems are very spongy and soft, scarcely woody; the root is soft and 
farinaceous with a tender, palatable interior devoid of the milky 
