E UPHORBIA CE^. 



131 



With the petals, and five a little shorter superposed to them. Each is 

 formed of a free filament incurved in the bud, and a bilocular anther, 

 dehiscing by two longitudinal clefts, introrse, but with the face 



Ch-oUn Tiglium. 



Fig. 197. Diagram of male Fig. 198. Long. sect, of female flower (f). Fig. 199. Diagram of 

 flower. female flower. 



Fig. 201. Fruit. 



Fig. 200. Long. sect, of flower (4). 



Fig. 202. Seed. 



looking outwards before anthesis, on account of the incurvation of 



the filament. In the female flower, the calyx, oftener valvate than 



imbricated, has sepals which may be from four or five to ten or a 



dozen. The petals, rarely as much developed as in the male flower 



and having the same form, are generally narrow, short, glanduliform 



and may even disappear altogether. They generally alternate with 



five independent or more or less united glands of an hypogynous 



disk surrounding the base of a sessile ovary, generally trilocular. 



In each cell is found a descendent ovule, with exterior and superior 



mioropyle, capped by an obturator of varied size. The style is 



early divided, often even from the base, into three bifid or several 



times dichotomous branches, sometimes even much ramified. The 



capsular, tri-eoccate fruit is provided with a central columella.- The 



bivalve shells each contain a descendent seed, analogous to that of 



the EuphorlecB and Ricinus (fig. 202), whose micropyle is accom- 



