•^ EUPHOEBiACEjE. [EuphorMa. 



** Glands of the involucre pointed or angular. 

 J Bracts united at the base. 



4. E. amygdaloides, L. Wood Spurge. " Umbel of about 5 or 

 6 principal branches and several scattered peduncles below, leaves 

 nearly membranaceous obovato-lanceolate hairy beneath attenu- 

 ated at the base entire, glands of the involucre (yellow) lunate 

 with 2 horns, capsules minutely tuberculate glabrous, seeds 

 smooth."— fir. Fl. p. 369. E. B. t. 256. E. sylvatica, L. : Ber- 

 ■ tol. Fl. Ital. V. p. 97. 



A beautiful and abundant species in woods, thickets, and along moist hedges 

 throughout the island, i^/. April— June. i^r. June, July. 2(. 



Root perennial, thiol, woody, blackish brown externally, emitting several creep- 

 ing often much-branched fibres, and, like the rest of the plant, milky. Stems 

 several in the larger plants very numerous, about 2 feet high, branched chiefly 

 at the base, simple above, round and slender, erect or a little ascending at their 

 origin, sometimes tortuous, tough, woody, scarred, leafless and of a fine coral-red 

 or purple below, and glabrous or nearly so, hollow, leafy, succulent and finely 

 downy towards the summit with almost wooUy hairs, perishing after having 

 once flowered or biennial. Leaves numerous, alternate or scattered, quite entire, 

 persistent through the winter, those of the barren or first year's shoots obovato- 

 oblong or obovato-lanceolate, from about 2 to 4 inches in length, pale grayish 

 green, soft and flexile, rosulate, downy on both sides ; those of the flowering stems 

 similar in form, but usually smaller and shorter, firmer or subcoriaceous, dart 

 green, shining and nearly or quite glabrous above, crowded towards the summit 

 of the stem, the uppermost smaller and partly erect, those lower down becoming 

 larger and in turn patent, spreading or deflexed, with recurved tips ; all the leaves 

 obtuse or very slightly pointed, very gradually tapered into the petiole, often 

 tinged of a fine purple beneath, and with their margins somewhat deflexed 

 or involute, obscurely veined, with a strong pale green midrib; the uppermost on 

 the flowering stems bractescent or subtending the scattered peduncles, elliptical, 

 oblongo-elliptical or even obovate, apiculate or slightly retuse, sessile or nearly so. 

 Dinbel terminal from the leafy apex of the previous year's shoots, drooping before 

 expansion, afterwards erect, forming with the numerous scattered peduncles 

 beneath it an oblong, round-topped, subcorymbose panicle of from 8 or 9 to 12 

 inches in length ; principal rays from 5 to 8 or 10, subglabrous, once or twice 

 dichotomously forked at the summit, and bearing at each bifurcation a large, pale 

 yellowisli green, glabrous, circular, perfoliate bract, partially cleft or divided late- 

 rally into 2 semiorbicular segments, at first capped or concave, afterwards flat (the 

 margins of the sinus forming small, rounded, overlapping lobes), retuse or slightly 

 apiculate at the point of its greatest diameter, and mostly carrying a solitary 

 flower in its centre or in the angle of the fork it subtends : similar bracts accom- 

 pany the divisions of the scattered accessory or inferior peduncles. General invo- 

 lucre usually of as many obovate, elliptical or oblong 'Sessile leaflets as there are 

 rays to the umbel, a little hairy, rather unequal, green like the leaves. Glands 

 lunate, glabrous, greenish yellow, sometimes of a beautiful purple or orange, 

 somewhat bluntly toothed or crenate here and there, surrounding 3 or 4 staminate 

 florets and 1 pistillate one, besides a number of imperfect staminate ones con- 

 cealed in the woolly interior of the urceolate involucre. Style nearly erect, bifid 

 at the summit, the lobes divaricate, thickened or glandular, slightly reflexed. 

 Germen glabrous. Capsules small, green, very deeply and bluntly 3-lobed, gla- 

 brous, finely granulate, scabrous. Seeds oblongo - rotundate, pale ashy gray, 

 smooth and glabrous, under a high magnifier minutely punctate, tipped with the 

 small, roundish, lobed and depressed caruncle, of a waxy white colour. 



The earliest of all our Spurges, in very mild seasons beginning to flower as 

 early as January or February. It has not yet been found wild in Scotland, and 

 appears to be very rare in Ireland. 



