314 BOTANY AND PHARMACOGNOSY. 



m. EUPHORBIACEtE OR SPURGE FAMILY.— The 

 plants are herbs, shrubs or trees with acrid and often milky latex. 

 The fruit is mostly a trilocular, dehiscent capsule; the seeds are 

 anatropous and have an oily endosperm. 



Stillingia sylvatica or Queen's-Root yields the official Stillingia 

 (p. 462). The plant is a perennial herb about i M. high and 

 diffusely branched. The leaves are obovate, short-petiolate, with 

 glandular-serrate margin ; the flowers are in terminal spikes, 

 light yellow, moncecious, the staminate being above and the 

 pistillate below, the latter solitary in the axils of the lower 

 bractlets (Fig: 162). 



Ricinus communis or Castor-Oil Plant is an annual herb in the 

 temperate regions but is shrub-like and perennial in tropical and 

 sub-tropical countries. In temperate regions the plant is from 

 I to 5 M. high ; the leaves are peltate and 6- to ii-palmately-lobed ; 

 the flowers are greenish, apetalous, monoecious and in racemes, 

 the pistillate being above the staminate on the flower-axis ; the 

 fruit is a 3-locular, oval, spinous capsule, which dehisces sep- 

 ticidally (Fig. 90, B). The seeds are anatropous, somewhat flat- 

 tened-oblong ; 10 to 16 mm. long and 4 to 8 mm. in diameter; 

 smooth, mottled grayish-brown or yellowish-red, with a promi- 

 nent caruncle ; hard but brittle testa, thin white tegmen, large oily 

 endosperm, and thin foliaceous cotyledons at the center. The 

 seeds contain 45 to 50 per cent, of oil which constitutes the Castor 

 Oil of medicine and a large amount of proteids in the form of 

 aleurone grains (Fig. 122, JD). The cake from which the oil is 

 expressed contains a poisonous principle known as ricin which 

 is apparently poisonous to cattle, but not to poultry. 



Croton Tiglium is a shrub or small tree indigenous to tropical 

 Asia and extensively cultivated in tropical countries; the leaves 

 are alternate, oblong-lanceolate with petioles which are glandular 

 at the base, but wanting in the star-shaped hairs so characteristic 

 of other species of this genus; the flowers are small, monoecious 

 and in terminal racemes, the pistillate being above and the stam- 

 inate below ; the fruit is a 3-locular, septicidally dehiscent capsule. 

 The seeds resemble those of Ricinus in size and structure, except 

 that they are less smooth, more brownish in color and the caruncle 

 is quite small. 



