Wild Flowers of Georgetown. 347 



growing up the stalks in an interrupted leafy spike, and 

 narrow serrated leaves, is the sweet-broom or liquorice- 

 weed (Scoparia dulcis) . The term broom- weed is also 

 applied here to the little tough-stemmed yellow mallows 

 to be noticed presently, that grow along the road-sides. 

 The spurges are common weeds in these and all gar- 

 dens. The most noticeable is an ere6l slender-branched 

 plant a foot or two high, with narrow finely-serrated 

 leaves and many axillary clusters of tiny white or pinkish 

 flowers, generally mixed with thegreenorpurplish rounded 

 seeds, not bigger than a large pin's head. This kind is 

 called milk-weed, fowl-tongue, or " man" dove-weed, and 

 its milky juice is held to be good for purifying the blood. 

 Under the name ot the tutsan-leaved spurge — a transla- 

 tion of its scientific name, Euphorbia hypericifolia — it 

 is dignified with a whole copper-plate in the last edition 

 of the Encyclopedia Britannica as a type of its order. 

 The small leaves of the spurges, almost like the pinnate 

 leaflets of some of the leguminosa-, give a rather laddery 

 look to the stems, which is most noticeable in the pros- 

 trate kinds. The dove- weed or red milk-weed (Euphor- 

 bia pilulifera), common everywhere, has minute olive 

 green or reddish flowers and fruit crowded up the 

 brownish stems, which are more often prostrate than 

 erect. The tiny nutlets of this and the next kind are a 

 favourite food of the ground doves common here. A 

 still smaller and more creeping kind, with numerous 

 pairs of rounded leaflets less than half an inch long, is 

 the thyme-leaved spurge or dove-weed (Euphorbia thy- 

 mifolia), common on the paths ; and at least one other 

 small prostrate kind is o f trn found with it. An allied 

 plant called Surinam bitters (PJiyllantlius Niruri) , about 



X X2 



