EUPHORBIACEiE. 



75 



and if inserted into wounds cause death. The timber is finely veined, and takes 

 a high polish ; but before the trees are felled, fires are usually lighted round, to 

 inspissate the sap and render the woodman's occupation less dangerous, for the 

 juices falling on the naked hands or feet cause the same acute pain as if the parts 

 were seared with a red-hot iron. 



Excsecaria is another very poisonous genus belonging to this tribe; if the 

 juice gets in the eyes it causes blindness, whence its name. Hura crepitans is the 

 sand-box, or monkey's dinner-bell, as it is sometimes called, from the cracking 

 noise which is made by the sudden opening of the capsules. The seeds, although 

 acrid and injurious to man, are not so to monkeys, who by the cracking of the 

 capsules are summoned to their repast. Caouctchouc exists in the sap, and is 

 very acrid. 



The tallow-tree of China (Stillingia) is economical ; and oil is expressed from 

 one of the species, which hardens when exposed to cold to the consistence of 

 common tallow, and by boiling becomes as hard as bees-wax. 



The dog's-mercury is a very poisonous plant, both to men and brute animals. 

 Sheep, when turned into woods, often suffer from it ; and serious accidents have 

 happened from its being mistaken for goose-foot and other pot-herbs. It is 

 reported in some botanical works to be eatable when boiled : this however is an 

 error, arising from its being mistaken for the annual mercury, which is innocuous. 

 This last (mercurialis annua) is dioecious, " and remarkable for the irritability of 

 its flowers, the stamineous ones becoming loosened from the footstalks when 

 mature, and vaulting elastically to the neighbouring pistilline plants — a fact 

 just observed by the late Professor Burnett, of the King's College, London. 



The Palma Christi is a well-known tender annual in gardens, admired for its 

 fine foliage and flowers. The seeds yield the valuable castor oil so useful in 

 medicine. Elseococcus verrucosus and E. vernicia, yield oils which are useful for 

 lamps or for painting. The different species of Croton Tiglium, Cascarilla, &c, 

 are all medicinal. Crozophora tinctoria affords the turnsol, which is a coloured 

 juice extracted from the fruit, and with which rags are wetted for exportation. 

 These rags are steeped in water to extract the colour, and with which jellies and 

 other things are coloured for the table. Gum lac is sometimes collected from the 

 Aleurites laccifera. The juice of the bark of Anda Braziliensis is employed by 

 the native Americans to intoxicate fish that they may be easier caught. The 

 hysena-poison is the fruit of a Euphorbiaceous plant found in South Africa ; the 

 seeds, when powdered, are sprinkled over the carcase of a dead lamb, and are 

 then an enticing but a fatal bait for the hysena. 



Iatropha is valuable both as food and medicine. The I. manihot affords the 

 celebrated manihot of the negroes, better known as the cassava of the West Indies 

 and the tapioca of Brazil. This nutritious food is the produce of the root of the 

 manihot, which, in its fresh state, is actually poisonous ; but when its juices are 

 dissipated by fire, the farinaceous remains are not only innocuous but palatable, 



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