320 
ETJPHORBIACEjE. 
[Croton. 
lobes. Petals free, ligulate or oblanceolate. Stamens numerous, 
central ; filaments filiform ; anthers oblong. Disk bearing 5 glands 
alternate with the petals. Ovary usually 3-celled ; ovules solitary in 
the cells ; styles 3, dichotomously branched. Fruit a 3-coccous capsule. 
Seeds carunculate. — Herbs or shrubs, with alternate petioled leaves, 
the pubescence often lepidote, the racemes axillary and terminal, 
usually monoieous with the male flowers at the top and the females 
below. Distrib. Cosmopolitan in the tropics. Species 450. 
Section Eltjteria. Flowers of both sexes furnished with petals. 
Stamens about 90 ; petioles long 1. C. mauritanicus. 
Stamens 20-30 ; petioles short 2. C. Boutonianus. 
Section Eucroton. Petals suppressed in the female flowers. 
Leaves with only a few lepidote scales, which often disappear as they mature. 
Leaves small oblong 3. C. grangerioides. 
Leaves larger obovate 4. C. fothergill^efolius. 
Leaves with crowded stellate tufts of hairs . . . 5. C. tili;efolius. 
1. C. mauritanicus, Lam.; Mull. Arg. in DC. Prod. xv. 2, 520. A 
shrub, with the branchlets clothed with soft spreading hairs. Leaves 
round-cordate, acute, distinctly crenate, membranous, clothed thinly 
above and more densely below with soft stellate hairs ; petiole 1-2 
in, long, densely pilose. Racemes 1-4 in. long, with a tetragonous 
pilose axis and tomentose peduncles ; pedicels finally -|-f in. long. 
Expanded female flower \ in. across, with spreading deltoid tomentose 
sepals and densely pilose oblanceolate-oblong petals, which are also 
present in the male flower. Capsule -f in. broad, matted with dense 
whitish tomentum ; styles twice deeply forked. Stamens about 50 ; 
filaments glabrous, 4-5 times as long as the anthers. 
Mauritius, Commerson ! JBojer ! Also Bourbon. 
2. C. Boutonianus, Mull. Arg. in DC. Prod. xv. 2, 520. A shrub, 
with crowded short- petioled ovate or elliptical acute entire leaves 
rounded at the base, 1-2 in. long, penninerved, the hairs of the upper 
surface distinctly stellate, of the lower surface sublepidote, with a pair 
of stalked glands at the base. Racemes moderately long, with pedicels 
as long as the whitish round buds. Sepals deltoid. Ovary matted 
with tomentum. Styles two or three times forked. Stamens 20-30, 
with barbate filaments. Petals present in the male flowers. Fruit 
unknown. 
Mauritius ; described by Dr. Muller from specimens in De Candolle’s herbarium 
gathered by MM. Bojer and Bouton. Endemic. 
3. C. grangerioides, Bojer ; Mull. Arg. in DC. Prod. xv. 2, 584. A 
shrub 3-4 feet high, with densely lepidote slender branchlets. Leaves 
crowded, oblong, subcoriaceous, lf-3 in. long, obtuse, obscurely crenu- 
