DICOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS 



135 



2. P. Senega, L. Seneca Snakeroot. A perennial herb, with 

 several erect stems arising from stout, hard, knotty rootstocks. 

 Leaves lanceolate, oblong or lance-ovate, sessile. Flowers all alike, 

 small, white, in solitary close spikes. Kocky woods. 



53. EtrPHORBIACE.ffi. Spurge Family. 



Herbs, shrubs, or trees, usually with a milky, more or less 

 acrid and sometimes poisonous juice. Mowers mostly apeta- 

 lous, monoecious or dicecious (Fig. 16). Ovary usually 3-celled, 

 with 1 or 2 ovules in each cell ; stigmas as many as the 



A B 



Fig, 16. — MupJiorbia corollata. 



A, flower-cluster witli iiiTOlucre, tlie whole appearing like a single flower ; ^, a 

 single staminate flower ; C, immature fertile flower, as seen after the removal of 

 the sterile flowers ; i, involucre ; s, stigmas. 



cells or twice as many. Fruit a 3-lobed capsule. Seeds con- 

 taining fleshy or oily endosperm (Part I, Fig. 2). Most of 

 the family are natives of hot regions, many of them of pecu- 

 liar aspect from their adaptation 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. j 



