656 
APPENDIX, [ Botany of Terra Australia. 
The species of Euphorbia 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 tome 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 particu- 
lar at least, different from those given by Lamarck,* Ventenat,'!’ Richard V.[‘, 
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 under- 
stood by those who profess to follow him in this respect. 
With all the authors above quoted, I regard what Linneus has called 
Calyx and Corolla in Euphorbia as an Involucrum, 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 oftwo very distinct parts, the portion below the joint 
being the footstalk of the flower, and that above it the proper filament : but 
as the articulation itself is entirely naked, it follows that, there is no peri- 
anthium ; the filiform or laciniated scales, which authors have considered as 
such, being on this supposition analogous to brae tea? ; The female flower, 
in conformity with this supposition, has also its pedunculus, on the dilated, 
and in a few cases obscurely lobed, apex of which the sessile ovarium is 
placed. If this be a correct view of the structure of Euphorbia, it may be 
expected that the true filament, or upper joint of what has commonly been 
called filament, should, as in other plants, be produced subsequent to the 
distinct formation of the anthera, which consequently will be found at first 
sessile on the lower joint or peduncule, after that has attained nearly its full 
length ; and accordingly this proves to be the case in such species as I have 
examined. Additional probability is given to this view by the difference 
* Encyclop. botan. 4. p. 413. f Tableau, 3 . p. 487- 
t In Michaux,Ji. bor. amer. 2. p. 209. § Flor. Franc. 3 . p. 329. 
|| Gen. pi. 386. 
