2. C. pállida, A. DC. Leaves narrower, more glaucous and acuter, linear to narrowly lanceolate (or those upon the main stem oblong), all acute or somewhat cuspidate; fruit ovoid, larger (3–4´´ long), sessile or on short stout pedicels.—W. Minn. to S. W. Kan., and westward.
3. C. lívida, Richardson. Peduncles slender, axillary, 3–5-flowered, shorter than the oval leaves; calyx-tube not continued beyond the ovary, the lobes ovate; style short; fruit pulpy when ripe, red.—Newf., N. Vt., sandy shores of L. Superior, and northward.
2. PYRULÀRIA, Michx. Oil-nut. Buffalo-nut.
Flowers diœcious or polygamous. Calyx 4–5-cleft, the lobes recurved, hairy-tufted at base in the male flowers. Stamens 4 or 5, on very short filaments, alternate with as many rounded glands. Fertile flowers with a pear-shaped ovary invested by the adherent tube of the calyx, naked at the flat summit; disk with 5 glands; style short and thick; stigma capitate-flattened. Fruit fleshy and drupe-like, pear shaped; the globose endocarp thin. Embryo small; albumen very oily.—Shrubs or trees, with alternate short-petioled and deciduous leaves; the small greenish flowers in short and simple spikes or racemes. (Name a diminutive of Pyrus, from the shape of the fruit.)
1. P. pùbera, Michx. Shrub straggling (3–12° high), minutely downy when young, at length nearly glabrous; leaves obovate-oblong, acute or pointed at both ends, soft, very veiny, minutely pellucid-punctate; spike small and few-flowered, terminal; calyx 5-cleft; fruit 1´ long. (P. oleifera, Gray.)—Rich woods, mountains of Penn. to Ga. Whole plant, especially the fruit, imbued with an acrid oil.
Order 98. EUPHORBIÀCEÆ. (Spurge Family.)
Plants usually with a milky acrid juice, and monœcious or diœcious flowers, mostly apetalous, sometimes achlamydeous (occasionally polypetalous or monopetalous); the ovary free and usually 3-celled, with a single or sometimes a pair of ovules hanging from the summit of each cell; stigmas or branches of the style as many or twice as many as the cells; fruit commonly a 3-lobed capsule, the lobes or carpels separating elastically from a persistent axis and elastically 2-valved; seed anatropous; embryo straight, almost as long as and the flat cotyledons mostly as wide as the fleshy or oily albumen. Stipules often present.—A vast family in the warmer parts of the world; most numerously represented in northern countries by the genus Euphorbia, which has very reduced flowers within a calyx-like involucre.
[*] Flowers all without calyx, included in a cup-shaped calyx-like involucre,—the whole liable to be mistaken for a single flower.
1. Euphorbia. Involucre surrounding many staminate flowers (each of a single naked stamen) and one pistillate flower (a 3-lobed pistil).
[*][*] Flowers with a calyx, without involucre.