146 KEY AND FLORA 
or twice as many. Fruit a 3-lobed capsule. Seeds containing 
fleshy or oily endosperm. Most of the family are natives of 
hot regions, many of them of peculiar aspect from their adap- 
tation to life in dry climates. [The family is too difficult for 
the beginner in botany to determine many of its genera and 
species with certainty, but a few are described below. ] 
I, JATROPHA L. 
Shrubs or herbs. Leaves alternate. Flowers monecious, 
staminate and pistillate intermixed in the cymes, apetalous. 
Calyx large, white, 5-lobed, corolla-like. Stamens numerous, 
usually monadelphous. Ovary usually 3-celled, 3-seeded ; styles 
3, united at the base, several-parted.* 
1. J. stimulosa Michx. Spurge Nettie. Perennial herbs armed 
with stinging hairs; stems erect, branched, bright green with white 
lines, 8-15 in. high. Leaves long-petioled, deeply palmately 3-5- 
lobed, the lobes irregularly cut and toothed, often mottled. Sepals 
white, spreading. Seeds oblong, smooth, mottled. In dry woods S.* 
Fic. 23. Euphorbia corollata 
A, flower cluster with involucre, the whole appearing like a single flower. 
B, a single staminate flower: a, anther. C, fertile flower, as seen after 
the removal of the sterile flowers. D, partly matured fruit: 7, involucre; 
s, stigmas; c, capsule 
I. EUPHORBIA L. 
Herbs or shrubs, with milky juice, often poisonous. Flowers 
moneecious, inclosed in a 4—5-lobed involuere, which is often 
showy and resembles a calyx or corolla, usually bearing large 
