Dcdechampsia is placed in this tribe, but does not
well accord with its character. Judging from the
Indian species only, this genus would require a tribe
for itself.
2d. HippoMANEiE. Ovules solitary. Flowers apet-
alous, in spikes: bracts one- or many-flowered.
3d. AcALYPHEiE. Ovule solitary. Flowers apet-
alous, in clustered spikes or racemes.
4th. Crotoneje. Ovule solitary. Flowers usually
having petals, in clusters, spikes, racemes, or panicles.
In this tribe the higher development of the flowers,
as shown by the presence of petals, is made use of
in grouping.
5th. FhyxiiAwtheje. Ovules in pairs. Stamens
in the centre of the flower.
6th. Buxe-ze. Ovules in pairs. Stamens inserted
beneath the sessile rudiment of an ovary.
Illustrations of each of these tribes will be found
in the following plates, in which I have made it a
principal object to represent as many genera as possible;
about 40 having found places, in this series,
will give a fair idea of the Indian branch of the order.
More of course might have been given, but other
orders must in that case have suffered, as my space
is now limited.
On the affinities of this order and the place it
should occupy in the system of vegetables, two adverse
opinions prevail, Jussieu and his followers
believing that its proper place is in the diclinous apet-
alous class; while Lindley and those who coincide
in opinion with him place it among the polypetalous
orders, as one “ losing its petals in part of its species.”
Lindley says, • “ But if, instead of considering
the imperfectly developed genera of Europe as typical
of the true structure of the order, we look to
those of tropical countries, we find that the apetalous
character by no means holds good in them...............
upon looking through the genera described by Adrien
de Jussieu in his monograph, it appears that out of
61 genera no fewer than 32 have petals. The tendency
of the order is, therefore, at least as great to form
petals as to want them. Now if this be so, and the
separation o f sexes is disregarded, it will be found,” &c.
Such being the two sides of the question, I do not
presume to sit as umpire between the adverse parties,
but would ask in my own name, Why disregard the
separation o f the sexes? why throw out of consideration
a circumstance so very constant throughout the large
assemblage of plants brought together under this
family name ? I f separation of sexes is, as it generally
is, to be viewed as an indication of diminished
perfection in the floral development, then the very
extraordinary circumstance of about 2500 species, all
belonging to one natural order and all agreeing in that
particular, seems at once to stamp the order as one
which ought to occupy a lower grade in the series
than those furnished with the most perfect and complex
floral organization met with in the vegetable
kingdom. Add to the universal imperfection of sexual
separation, the want, in at least one half the
species, of one of the floral verticels and in many
others both, and we can scarcely, I think, help arriving
at the conclusion that, in place of this being a
polypetalous order, losing its petals in a part of its
species, it is in truth a most unequivocal diclinous one,
striving, as j t were, to raise itself in the scale, by getting
them in as many of its species as it possibly
can, and as if to show its inability to raise itself higher,
we find in some genera petals in the male flower
but wanting in the female. Coinciding then with
those who view separation of sexes in plants as an
indication of a lower grade of development than
their union in the same flower, I would, in any a rrangement
I had to propose, place this order among
the diclinous ones. This Lindley has done in his
“ Vegetable Kingdom” and, to my mind, thereby greatly
improved on the arrangement of his Nixus, and
the 2d edition of his Natural System, in which last
and in Endlicher’s Genera Plantar, it has always appeared
to me misplaced and stationed among unsuitable
company.
1862. E uphorbia N ivulia (Hamilton), branches
round, naked below, leafy on the apex: stipulary
spines naked,, paired, spiral: leaves terminal tongueshaped,
mucronate, fleshy.
Arid rocky hills near Coimbatore, also frequent in
similar localities in the Madura District.
This plant attains the size of a large shrub. The
branchlets come off in whorls of four. The leaves
are deciduous during the cool season and the plant is
usually naked in January and February. In March,
when being clothed with new foliage, the flowers make
their appearance. The first that opens is usually sterile
(that is, wanting the pistil), which is shortly after
followed by two lateral fertile ones (furnished with
both male and female organs), which ripen their
seed in April and May. The stamens, or more properly
the male flowers, are each furnished at the base
with a large obovate cuniate fringed bract, but is destitute
of the calycine appendage at the joint.
The leaves are from 4 to 6 inches long by from
l£ to 2 broad, near the apex, whence they taper towards
the base; smooth shining glabrous, quite entire,
succulent.
In the above description, I have spoken of the
flowers as understood by Linnaeus and the older
Botanists, not as viewed by modern ones, that is, as an
involucre containing an indefinite number of monan-
drous male flowers surrounding a solitary female one,
supported on a more or less elongated pedicel by
which it is protruded beyond the cup of the involucre ;
the whole together forming not a single flower, but a
capitulum, as in Composites.
1863. E uphorbia trigona (R o x b .), shrubby,
erect, 3-sided with prominent repand angles: stipulary
spines 2 or sometimes 4 : leaves deciduous obovate,
cuniate: peduncles above the axils, 3-flowered; the
middle one-sterile the lateral ones fertile: flowering
after the fall of the leaves.
Rocky arid hills near Coimbatore, flowering February
and March.
The drawing was made from a young plant which
flowered in my garden. The leafy branch exhibits
the plant in leaf, the flowering one was taken from a
branch which flowered for the first time and only
'produced male flowers. The dissected flowers were
obtained from wild plants, perhaps, too young, as the
female flower is almost sessile not as usually seen,
supported on a long pedicel.
The vertical section at No. 5, shows the gradation
of male flowers which continue, for some weeks, successively
to appear above the edge of the involucrum.
The tube of the involucre is filled with numerous
petaloid deeply lobed and fringed bracts. The sterile
flower is nearly sessile, the fertile ones pedicelled.