470 Flora of the Malayan Peninsula. 
tudinal dehiscence, sometimes variously divaricate, sometimes + — 
cruciformly arranged, rarely confluent at the apex and rarely with 
porous or transverse dehiscence. Pvistillode present or 0. Female 
flowers without a disk or the disk present and hypogynous and 
annular or pulvinate or lining the lower part of calyx; staminodes 
seldom present. Ovary usually sessile, 1-many-locular but often 
3-locular, the loculi 1-2-ovuled; the ovules pendulous from the 
inner angle, with ventral raphe, anatropous, often with the funicle 
expanded into a cellular or scalelike or hoodlike mass; styles 
present or stigmas sessile; styles as many as the carpels, free or 
+ — united and entire or + — divided, erect or spreading or re- 
curved, subulate or variously thickened or dilated, with stigmatic 
surface on inner face; sessile stigmas + — lobed or disciform. 
Fruit usually a capsule of as many cocci as ovarian loculi, usually 
3, the cocci breaking away into 2 valves from a persistent centre 
axis; sometimes a drupe with 1-3 cells, seldom of 2-3 pyrenes. 
Seeds as many as the ovules or fewer, attached at or from above 
the middle to near the apex of the cell, with or without an arillus 
or caruncle at the apex; albumen usually abundant and fleshy; 
embryo usually straight, enclosed in the albumen and with large 
complanate cotyledons, rarely minute with narrow semiterete ccty- 
ledons; rarely albumen 0 or very scanty and cotyledons fleshy 
DistTRiB. Genera about 200 with about 4,000 species mostly con- 
fined to the tropics. 
Since No. 25 of these ‘‘ Materials’ was published in 1915, the great increase 
in cost of paper and printing has made condensation—consistent with clearness, 
—of statement a virtue of necessity. Accordingly the original MSS. of that 
account of the Huphorbiaceae—a great part of which was written before the 
war—has been entirely rewritten and reduced. The reduction may be far from 
apparent, as owing to so many of the species—all of which are unisexual to 
begin with—having dioecious flowers and different inflorescences in the two sexes 
only a relative, not an absolute shortening of specific descriptions has been 
possible. The generic definitions have been restricted to descriptions of the 
characters common only to the Malayan Peninsula species under each genus, 
but these characters—including the vegetative ones—have been described in 
considerable detail to avoid repetition of them in successive specific descrip- 
tions. 
The citations of authors have been ruthlessly pruned, only those being 
given that I think are likely to be of practical use to students of Malayan 
Euphorbiaceae. 
The most important works are :— 
E. Borssrer. Euphorbia in D.C. Prodr. XV, ii, 7-187 (published 
1862). 
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