OLASS XXI, ORDER I. | EUPHORBIA. 1143 
furrow, smooth, but somewhat rugose in a dried state. Seeds obovate, 
truncated at the base, rugose, brown. 
Habitat.—Thickets in stony places; about Upton, near Reading, 
Berks; on the declivities of the Steep Holmes, in the Severn; 
Crawfurdland, near Kilmarnoek ; Comrie Den, near Dunfermline.— 
Dr. Dewar. 
Biennial; flowering in June and July. 
The seeds of this ‘species, like the former, have been used as a 
cathartic, but require the same caution in their administration as 
those of that species. From the resemblance of the capsules to the 
bud of the caper plant, they have been pickled in vinegar, and used 
as sauce in the same manner; but -their very great acridity must 
render them at least a dangerous condiment. The active properties 
of these capsules resides in the oil contained in the albumen of the 
seeds, which may be expressed, and is found as active as the seeds 
themselves, three to eight drops is a dose. Its properties are similar 
to the oil expressed from the seeds of the Croton Tiglium, a plant of 
the same natural order ; the oil from the seeds of the latter plant is, 
perhaps, the most powerful cathartic known, and judiciously admi- 
nistered, one of the most useful medicines in many cases where an 
action of the bowels is required to be speedily produced. Combined 
with oil of turpentine, it forms one of the most efficacious external 
applications, shortly producing inflammation, and a numerous crop 
of small pustules upon the skin, wherever applied;; and in some cases 
thus externally applied, it acts also as a cathartic. The Ricinis 
communis, Castor Oil plant, or Palma Christi, is another plant of this 
order, well known for the valuable cathartic oil expressed from its 
seeds ; and many other plants of this order furnish most valuable 
medicines, but all of them excitants, which in some instances is 
combined with a nutritious amylaceous matter, as in the root of the 
Jatropha Manihot, or Cassava, the expressed juice of which is a most 
violent poison, while the residue forms a most bland and nutri- 
tive food of the Indians, known by the name of Cassava. As 
another instance of the wholly innocuous productions of the most 
active order of plants, we may mention Caoutchouc, or Indian 
rubber, which is obtained from many of the species of this order: 
and as an example of one of the still more extraordinary pro- 
duetions of the vegetable kingdom, the Tallow-tree, of China, a 
species of Stillingia. The oil expressed from the seeds of S. sebifera, 
becomes, by exposure to cold, as hard as suet or common tallow, and 
after it has been boiled, is as hard as bees-wax ; but to enumerate 
more of the exotic plants of this order, would extend beyond the 
province of this work. 
