28 GENERAL UEMARKS ON THE 



EUPHORBIAOEiE.^ This is an extensive and very 

 general family, of which about 100 species have already 

 been observed in Terra Australis. Of these the greater 

 part exist within the tropic, but the order extends to the 

 southern extremity of Van Diemen's Island, and the greater 

 number of the genera peculiar to this country are found in 

 the principal parallel or higher latitudes. 



55C] The species of Buphorhia are not numerous in Terra 

 Australis, most of them are intratropical plants, and all of 

 them are referable to one section of the genus. It appears 

 to me that the name of the order ought not to be taken from 

 this genus, which is so little calculated to afford a correct idea 

 of its structure that authors are still at variance in the names 

 and functions they assign to several parts of the flower. 

 The view I take of the structure of Euphorbia is, in one 

 important particular at least, different from those given by 

 Lamarck,^ Ventenat,' Richard?* and Decandolle/ though 

 possibly the same that Jussieu has hinted at;^ so briefly, 

 however, and I may add obscurely, that if his supposition 

 be really analogous to what I shall presently offer, he has 

 not been so understood by those who profess to follow him 

 in this respect. 



With all the authors above quoted, I regard what Lin- 

 neus has called calyx and corolla in Euphorbia as an in- 

 volucrum, containing several male flowers which surround a 

 single female. By some of these authors the male flowers 

 are described as monandrous, and in this respect, also, I 

 agree with them ; but the body, which all of them describe 

 as a jointed filament, I consider to be made up of two very 

 distinct parts, the portion below the joint being the foot- 

 stalk of the flower, and that above it the proper filament ; 

 but as the articulation itself is entirely naked, it follows 

 that there is no perianthium; the filiform or laciniated 

 scales which authors have considered as such, being on this 

 supposition analogous to bractese. The female flower, in con- 

 formity with this supposition, has also its pedunculus, on 



' Jus. gen. 384. 2 ;gni.yclop. hotan. 4, p. 413. 



2 Tableau, i, p. 487. ■• In Michattx.fl. hor. Amer. 2 p 209 



' i?/or. i?V-»«c. 3, p. 329. ^Oen.pl.^%&. 



