98 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
The lines of Herrick, which refer to the custom of substituting box for holly at 
Candlemas in decorations, are worth quoting :— 
“ Down with the rosemary and bays, 
Down with the misseltoe ; 
Instead of holly now upraise 
The greener box for show. 
“The holly hitherto did sway : 
Let box now domineer, 
Until the dawning Easter day 
Or Easter eve appear.” 
GENUS I.—KUPHORBIA. Linn. 
Flowers monecious, combined into flower-like groups surrounded by 
a calyx-like involucre containing numerous male flowers and a single 
central stalked female flower. Common involucre bellshaped, with 
4 or 5 segments, alternating with as many large thick glandular 
lobes, which are entire or notched and spreading, sometimes petaloid. 
Perianth absent. Male flowers reduced to a single stamen, with a joint 
showing its junction with the pedicel, which springs from a small bract 
at the base of the involucre. Female flower soon elevated on a stalk in 
the centre of the involucre, reduced to a 3-lobed and 3-celled ovary 
with 3 styles, sometimes with a very indistinct calyx at the base of the 
ovary. Capsule 3-lobed, splitting into 3 cocea; each coccum 1-seeded, 
bursting down the back, so as to form 2 valves. 
Herbs and shrubs of very various habit, with white milky acrid juice. 
This genus of plants was named after Euphorbus, physician to Juba, King of 
Mauritania, who is said first to have used some of the plants of this genus in medicine. 
Section I.—ANISOPHYLLUM. Raep. ap. Duby, Bot. Gall. 
Leaves opposite, with stipules. Flowers solitary in the forks of the 
stem or axillary. 
SPECIES I—EUPHORBIA PEPLIS. Lim. 
Prate MCCLIII. 
Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ. et Helv. Vol. V. Tab. CXXXL Fig. 4753, 
Billot, Fl. Gall. et Germ. Exsice. No. 1761. 
Tithymalus auriculatus, Lam. Fl. Fr. Vol. III. p. 102. 
Annual. Stems several from the crown of the root, prostrate, 
dichotomously branched. Leaves opposite, shortly stalked, oblong, 
half-cordate, obtuse or emarginate, nearly entire. Stipules minute, 
