380 SPURGE FAMILY. 



1 1 Leaves prominently digitate -lobed. 



7. RICINUS. Flowers in large panicled clusters, the fertile above, the staminate below. 



Calyx 5-parted. Stamens' very many, in several bundles. Styles 8, united at base, 

 each 2-parted, red. Fod large, 3-lobed, with 8 large seeds. (Lessons, Fig. 419.) 

 Leaves alternate, with stipules. 



++ ++ Stamens 2 or 8. 



8. TRAGJA. Flowers monoecious and apetalous, in racemes. Sterile flowers with 3-5- 



cleft calyx. Fertile flowers with 3-8-parted persistent calyx. Calyx lobes valvate im 

 the bud. Plants pubescent or hairy. 



9. STILLINGIA. Flowers in a terminal spike/naked and staminate above, a few fertile 



flowers at base. Calyx 2-8-cleft. Stamens 2, rarely 8. Fod 3-lobed. Stigmas 8, 

 simple. Bracts with a fleshy gland on each side. Leaves alternate, stipulate. 

 Plants glabrous. 



* * Ovules and mostly seeds 2 in each cell of the ovary and S-horned pod. Juice not 



milky in the following, which have monoscious flowers, mostly 4 sepals, 4 ex- 

 serted stamens in the sterile, and 3 awl-shaped spreading or recurved styles or 

 stigmas in the fertile, flowers. 



10. BUXUS. Flowers in small sessile bracted clusters in the axils of the thick and ever- 



green entire opposite leaves. Shrubs or trees. 



11. PACHY8ANDRA. Flowers in naked lateral spikes, staminate above, a few fertile 



flowers at base. Filaments long, thickish and flat, white. Nearly herbaceous, low, 

 tufted ; leaves barely evergreen, alternate, coarsely few-toothed. 



12. PHYLLANTHU8. Flowers axillary and monoecious. Calyx commonly 5-6-parted, 



Imbricated in the bud. Petals 0. Stamens generally 8. Ovules 2 in each cell. 

 Leaves alternate in 2 ranks. 



1. EUPHORBIA, SPURGE. (Said to be named for Muphorbus, phy- 

 sician to King Juba.) Flowers commonly in late summer. Only the 

 commonest species mentioned here. 



* Shrubby species of the conservatory, winter-flowering, with red bracts 



or leaves. 



E. pulcherrima, Willd., or Poinsettia, of Mexico ; unarmed stout shrub, 

 with ovate or oblong and -angled or sinuately few-lobed leaves, rather 

 downy beneath, those next the flowers mostly entire (4'-5' long) and of 

 the brightest vermilion-red ; flowers in globular greenish involucres bear- 

 ing a great yellow gland at the top on one side. 



E. splendens, Bojer. Crown op Thorns. Mauritius; smooth with 

 thick and horridly prickly stems, oblong-spatulate, mucronate leaves, and 

 slender, clammy peduncles, bearing a cyme of several deep-red apparently 

 2-petalous flowers ; but the seeming petals are bracts around the cup-like 

 involucre of the real flowers. 



E. fiilgens, Karw. (E. jacquinlxfl6ra). Mexico ; unarmed, smooth, 

 with slender recurved branches and broadly lanceolate leaves, few-flow- 

 ered ; peduncles shorter than the petioles ; what appears like a 5-cleft 

 corolla are the bright red lobes of the involucre. 



* ♦ Herbs natives of or naturalized in the country, the last and sometimes 



a few of the others cult, in gardens; flowers late summer. 



■*- Glands of the involucre with more or less conspicuous petal-like margins 

 or appendages, these usually white or rose-colored (obscure in the first). 



•w- Leaves all opposite, small and short-stalked, oblique at the base. ® 



= Seeds not roughened ; leaves entire, and the entire plant glabrous. 



E. polygonifblia, Linn. A prostrate, spreading, reddish little plant 

 growing on the sands of the seacoast and along the Great Lakes ; leaves 



\ 



