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EUPHORBIACEiE. 



One of the most interesting natural orders of systematic botany, is the large 

 order Euphorbiacese. The species are as remarkable for their various habit, and 

 curious mode of flowering, as they are for the qualities contained in their milk- 

 like juices, and for the manifold dietetic, medical, and poisonous properties extract- 

 able therefrom. They are natives of almost every part of the world, though 

 the chief of them are tropical. The spurge, the nettle spurge, the manchineel, 

 the castor-oil plant, the xylophylla, and the box, with their numerous allies, are 

 all included in this order. The structure of the flowers of Euphorbia was long 

 very much misunderstood. Formerly the flowers were supposed to be united, and 

 from the number arranged in a radius round the pistil, situated on the disk, the 

 genus was referred to the eleventh class of Linnaeus. But it was reserved for 

 Dr. Brown to prove that what had been mistaken for a single flower is, in truth, 

 a collection of twelve or more monandrous naked florets, arranged in a circum- 

 ference and surrounding a single three-pistilled central flower which forms the 

 disk. In the Euphorbise the involucra are so highly developed, that neither 

 calyx nor corolla is evolved, and notwithstanding the abortion of perianth, 

 nectaries are present, alternating with the lobes of the involucra. 



Many of the species are worthy of cultivation, at least for their strange ap- 

 pearance, if not for their beauty. Their milky sap, which contains more or less 

 of caoutchouc, is so acrid that it will redden or even blister the skin, and is used 

 to destroy callosities, whence many of the species are called wart-worts. The 

 leafless and prickly species make excellent hedges, and are often employed for 

 this purpose in warm climates. During the wars in Hindostan, such fences were 

 more feared by our troops than chevaicx-de-frise, for soldiers not only got their 

 flesh torn, but the wounds were filled with the burning sap ; and when cavalry 

 regiments were forced through them, the horses became ungovernable. 



A gum resin called Euphorbium is a useful drug, and is principally obtained 

 from three of the species, namely, E. officinarum, E. Canariensis, and E. anti- 

 quorum. The sap of E. capitata and E. helioscopia, are used by the peasants of 

 South America for the cure of the bite of serpents or vipers. E. corollata and 

 E. cyparissias are both medicinal; E. heptagona is a violent poison, and used by 

 the Africans to anoint their arrows and spears. The seeds of E. lathyris are 

 not unfrequently pickled instead of capers, and eaten as a sauce with meat, 

 whence it is called the caper-spurge. 



Another genus belonging to this order is the hippomane, so called by the 

 Greeks because it was supposed to make horses mad. The modern hippomane is 

 the West Indian manchineel, a very acrid and deleterious plant. The sap which 

 exudes when the boughs are cut or broken, will blister and sphacelate the skin, 



