INCOMPLETE 263 



pollinated flowers; chuka- (acid) palang {Rumex 

 vesicarius), cultivated for its succulent acid leaves; 

 Antigonon leptopus, a common garden climber with 

 panicles of showy pink or white flowers and rachis 

 often ending in a tendril; Coccoloba platyclada, culti- 

 vated for its flattened leaf-like stem (cladode) (see 

 Plate I); Buckwheat {Fagopyrum esculentum), culti- 

 vated largely in England and Europe for its fruits, 

 from which, as from wheat, bread is prepared; it is 

 cultivated on a small scale in the 

 Himalayas and the Khasi Hills. 

 Species of Rheum or Rhubarb 

 are cultivated as vegetables. 



Flowers, possessing a petaloid 

 perianth, and aggregated in 

 spiked or panicled inflorescence, 

 are entomophilous. Several 

 species are dimorphic. 



Nat. Order 5. EuphorbiacecB. Fig. 131.^ Euphorbia 



— Herbs, shrubs, or trees, often /, involucre. 



with milky or watery juice. 



Leaves usually simple; stipules usually small, cadu- 

 cous or persistent. Flowers usually small, minute, 

 always unisexual. Inflorescence various: sometimes 

 a cluster of one^stamened naked florets surrounds a 

 solitary pistil, and the whole cluster is enclosed in a 

 perianth-like involucre (cyathium) (fig. 232); some- 

 times it is a dichotomous cyme. Perianth often small, 

 simple, sepaloid ; sometimes obsolete or wanting, 

 rarely double. Stamens various ; sometimes solitary, 

 often indefinite; filaments free or connate in i or more 

 bundles. Carpels usually connate into a 3-celled 

 superior ovary, ovules i or 2 in each cell, pendulous 

 from the inner angle of each cell; stigma usually 

 consists of three bifid branches. Fruit usually a cap- 



