KUPHORBIACE^. 151 



ORDER LXXXIII EUPHORBIACE^, Ad. Juss.— Lindl. Nat. 



Syst. p. 112. 



THE EUPHORBIUM TRIBE. 



As we have but extremely insufficient materials regarding this large fa- 

 mily, we shall abridge from Lindley's remarks (/. c.) as much as will suit 

 our purpose. " Trees, shrubs, or herbaceous plants, often abounding 

 in acrid milk. The order, which probably does not contain fewer than 1500 

 species, exists in the greatest abundance in equinoctial America, where 

 about 3-8ths of the whole number have been found, sometimes in the form 

 of large trees, frequently of bushes, still more usually of diminutive weeds, 

 and occasionally of deformed, leafless, succulent plants, resembling Cacta- 

 ceae in their port, but differing from them in every other particular. In 

 the Western world they gradually diminish, as they recede from the equa- 

 tor, so that not above 50 species are known in N. America, of which a 

 very small number reaches as far as Canada. — There are about 1 20 species 

 from Europe, including the basin of the Mediterranean; of these 16 only 

 are found in Great Britain, and 7 in Sweden." (Lindl.) S. Africa contains 

 100 species, {Harvey.) Of Indian, Roxb. in his fl. ind. describes 1 12. What 

 may be the amount of Blume's Javanese Euphorbiacese, we cannot ascertain, 

 his works being inaccessible to us. That their number however, must be 

 considerable, we conclude from his 21 new genera, enumerated by Lindl. 

 Our ignorance is still more increased by the Catalogues of Heyn's, Klein's, 

 Rottler's, Buchanan's, Finlayson's, Wallich's, Wight's, and Royle's dis- 

 coveries in this order being unpublished. 



" The general property of this order is that of exciting, varying greatly 

 in degree, and consequently in effect. This principle resides chiefly in 

 the milky secretion of the order, and is most powerful in proportion as 

 the secretion is abundant. The smell and taste of a few are aromatic ; 

 but in the greater part the former is strong and nauseous, the latter acrid 

 and pungent. The hairs of some species are stinging. Some of them are 

 emetic, others cathartic — many of them are also dangerous, even in small 

 doses, and so fatal in some cases, that no practitioner would dare to pre- 

 scribe them ; as for example, Manchineel. In fact, there is a gradual and 

 insensible transition, in this order, from mere stimulants to the most dan- 

 gerous poisons. Whatever the stimulating principle of Euphorbiaceae may 

 be, it seems to be of a very volatile nature, because application of heat is 

 sufficient to dissipate it. Thus the root of Jatropha Manihot or Cassava 

 which, when raw, is one of the most violent of poisons, becomes a whole- 

 some nutritious article of food when roasted. In the seeds, the albumen is 

 harmless and eatable, but the embryo itself is acrid and dangerous. Inde- 

 pendently of this volatile principle, there are two others belonging to the or- 

 der, which require to be noticed ; the first of these is Caoutchouc, that most 

 innocuous of all substances, produced by the most poisonous of all families, 



