SPURGE FAMILY. 



261 



ovary and style densely pubescent; capsule 2 lines long; seed smooth 

 and shining, 1£ lines long. 



Very abundant towards the interior: plains of the Sacramento and 

 San Joaquin; Sierra Foothills; low hills and valley fields of the Coast 

 Ranges. The California Indians used the heavy-scented herbage of 

 this plant to stupefy fish in small streams in order that they might be 

 caught by hand, whence the Spanish-Californian name, Yerba del 

 Pescado. The seeds are sought by turkeys. 



2. CROTON L. 



Ours perennial herbs, suffrutescent at base, with alternate entire 

 leaves. Staminate flowers in racemes; calyx 5-parted; glands of the 

 disk as many as and alternate with the petals; stamens 5 to many. 

 Pistillate flowers mostly solitary; calyx 5-parted: ovary 3-celled, the 

 cells 1-ovuled; styles twice forked. Capsule 3-lobed, globose in out- 

 line. Seeds smooth and shining, with a caruncle. (Kroton, a tick, 

 the Greek name of the Castor Plant, its seeds resembling that insect.) 



1. C. Californicus Mull. Arg. Stems branching, erect or diffuse, 

 from a woody base; herbage hoary, except the upper side of the 

 leaves which is green and finely stellate-pubescent; leaves oblong, 

 £ to 1£ in. long, on petioles 4 lines to over 1 in. long; staminate 

 racemes at length \ in. long, developing gradually, the flowers 

 soon deciduous after anthesis and leaving an elongated naked rachis; 

 staminate calyx about 1 line long; disk obscurely o-lobed; stamens 

 9 to 11, with hairy filaments; pistillate flowers on short pedicels; 

 styles twice forked; capsule scurfy, 3 lines in diameter. 



Sandy hills near the ocean from the San Francisco peninsula south- 

 ward to Southern California; also near Antioch(!). A bitter tea is 

 made from the leaves and used for rheumatism by Spanish-Californians. 



3. EUPHORBIA L. Spurge. 

 Ours herbs. Involucres solitary in the forks or in terminal umbels, 

 with 4 or 5 teeth alternating with as many glands; glands either 

 naked or appendaged (/. e,, with a colored margin*. Flowers 

 monoecious, both pistillate and staminate naked and included in an 

 involucre which itself resembles a flower but really encloses a cluster 

 of flowers consisting of several staminate and 1 pistillate flower. 

 Staminate flower very much reduced, consisting of a single stamen; 

 filament jointed on a short pedicel like it, the pedicel often with a 

 minute scale or bract at base, showing that the stamen is a distinct 

 flower. Pistillate flower supported on a pedicel in the center of the 

 involucre and soon protruded from it, consisting of a 3-celled ovary 

 and 3 bifid styles. Capsule with 3 cells, each 1-seeded. (Euphorbus, 

 King Juba's physician.) 



Stems prostrate; leaves small, all opposite and more or less unequal at base, 

 stipulate; glands of the involucre with a petal-like white or reddish 

 appendage. 



Herbage glabrous; stems and leaves infrequently reddish. 

 Leaves obovate or oblong, minutely serrulate at apex.l. E. scrpyllifolia. 

 Leaves deltoid to ovate-oblong, entire 4. E. ocellata. 



