■^^^ EDPHOKBiAOB^. [Eiiphorhia. 



stalks or quite sessile and oblique at the base. Umbds very small, terminal, 

 repeatedly di-trichotomnus. Flowers very minute, scarcely above a line in breadth, 

 yellowish green. Bracts ovato-cordate, apiculate, concave. Glands of the invo- 

 tucre 4, lunate, greenish, deeply pitted, with 2 long, slender, incurved white hairs. 

 Lobes of the involucre erect, ciliated. Anther-veils spherical, bursting by a trans- 

 verse fissure. Styles short, erect, deeply cleft, very obtuse. Capsules extremely 

 small, glabrous, with a double, narrow, undulated and rugose wing or border at 

 each angle. Seeds prismatic, truncate, light gray or ash-colour. 



I have remarked a monstrous form, in which some of the ovaria were converted 

 into a long horn-shaped excrescence surmounted by the styles. The juice of this 

 species, as of E. helioscopia, is employed to destroy warts. 



7. E. exigua, L. Divarf Spurge. " Umbel of generally 3 prin- 

 cipal forked branches, leaves linear-lanceolate as well as the brac- 

 teas rather rigid entire glabrous often truncate and mucronate, 

 glands of the involucre roundish with two horns, capsules nearly 

 smooth slightly tuberculate on the angles, seeds angular wrinkled 

 or reticulated." — Br.Fl. p. 369. E. B. t. 1336. 



In corn-fields, cultivated and waste ground, in every part of the island; abun- 

 dantly. Fl. July— November. ©. 



The smallest and most branched of our Spurges, characterized by the linear 

 and pointed involucres. 



Capsules small, bluntly trigonate, smooth or a little roughish at the angles only. 

 Seeds light ash-gray or partly clay-coloured, ovato-oblong or roundish, angular, 

 with a dark line down the inner corner like a suture, their lower end tipped with 

 a white heart-shaped carunculus, deeply muricato-rugose all over. 



b. Leaves opposite, decussate. 



*8. TL. Lathuris,L. Caper Spurge. Yect. Caper-bush. "Um- 

 bel of 3 — 4 principal bifid branches, bracteas cordato- acuminate, 

 leaves submembranaceous entire 4-farious on the first year's stem 

 oblong-lanceolate and. cordate at the base on the second year's 

 shoot, glands of the involucre bluntly lunate, germen glabrous, 

 seeds rough."— 5r Fl. p. 369. E. B. t. 2255. 



In waste and garden-ground amongst potatoes, and by roadsides near houses, 

 occasionally ; scarcely wild. " F/. June, July. ^ ." — Br.Fl. 



Nut lery unfrequent about Ryde, as on the Dover and in the fruit-gardens 

 at Si. Jolm's. At Binstead, Cowes, St. Lawrence, &o., coming up spon- 

 taneously from seed where it has not been previously cultivated, but unquestion- 

 ably escaped from cottage-gardens, where it is very common, and when once 

 introduced not easily eradicated. It is however certainly indigenous to many 

 parts of Britain, appearing in newly thinned copses. 



Root tapering. Stem upright, round, smooth, hollow, very milky, 2 — .3 feet 

 high or more. Leaves opposite, placed so closely together as to appear in whorls 

 of 4, each pair standing at right angles to the next pair above and below it, all 

 sessile, smooth, with a white midrib, the upper ones oblong-lanceolate, gradually 

 diminishing downwards, the lowermost linear, deflexed and crowded. Umbel 

 solitary, terminal, forked, with 4 principal branches, its ultimate divisions in 

 threes. Bracts cordate, acute, very large, quite concealing the uppermost flowers. 

 Glands of the involucre 4, luuate, with 2 round distant lobes: between the glands 

 of the involucre are as many membranous expansions of the latter (lobes of the 

 involucre), which are ovalo-acute, and have all the appearance of petals enclosing, 

 like them, the parts of fructification, and to which the glands stand much in the 

 relation of an outer perianth. Styles 3, grooved, spreading; stigmas cleft, obtuse. 

 Capsule very large, globular, 6-furrowed, quite smooth, as are the 3 oblong seeds. 



