[*][*][*][*] Diœcious; calyx equally 5-parted; petals none; stamens 10 or more; styles twice or thrice dichotomously 2-parted.
4. C. Texénsis, Muell. Annual, covered with a close canescent stellate pubescence, dichotomously branched or spreading (1–2° high); leaves narrowly oblong-lanceolate to linear; staminate spikes or racemes very short, often sessile; capsule stellate-tomentose and somewhat muricate.—Mo. and Kan. to Ala., Tex., and westward.
6. CROTONÓPSIS, Michx.
Flowers monœcious, in very small terminal or lateral spikes or clusters, the lower fertile. Ster. Fl. Calyx equally 5-parted. Petals 5, spatulate. Stamens 5, opposite the petals; filaments distinct, inflexed in the bud, enlarged at the apex. Fert. Fl. Calyx unequally 3–5-parted. Petals none. Glands (petal-like scales) 5, opposite the sepals. Ovary 1-celled, simple, 1-ovuled, bearing a twice or thrice forked style. Fruit dry and indehiscent, small, 1-seeded. Seed without caruncle.—A slender low annual, with alternate or opposite short-petioled linear or elliptical lanceolate leaves, which are green and smoothish above, but silvery hoary with starry hairs and scurfy with brownish scales underneath, as well as the branches, etc. (Croton and ὄψις, appearance, for a plant with the aspect and general character of Croton.)
1. C. lineàris, Michx.—Dry sandy soil, N. J. to Fla., west to Ill. and Kan. July–Sept.—Fruit about 1´´ long.
7. ARGYTHÁMNIA, P. Browne.
Flowers monœcious. Calyx 5-parted, valvate in the staminate flowers, imbricate in the pistillate. Petals alternate with the calyx-lobes and with the prominent lobes of the glandular disk. Stamens 5–15, united into a central column in 1–3 whorls. Styles 1–3-cleft. Capsule depressed, 3-lobed. Seeds subglobose, roughened or reticulated, not carunculate.—Erect herbs or undershrubs, with purplish juice, and alternate usually stipulate leaves. (Name from ἄργυρος, silver, and θάμνος, bush, from the hoariness of the original species.)
1. A. mercurialìna, Muell. Stem erect, nearly simple (1–2° high), sericeous; leaves sessile, oblong-ovate to lanceolate, entire, pubescent with appressed hairs or glabrate, somewhat rigid; raceme many-flowered, exceeding the leaves; ovary sericeous; capsule appressed-pubescent.—Kan. to Ark. and Tex.
8. ACALỲPHA, L. Three-seeded Mercury.
Flowers monœcious; the sterile very small, clustered in spikes, with the few or solitary fertile flowers at their base, or sometimes in separate spikes. Calyx of the sterile flowers 4-parted and valvate in bud; of the fertile, 3–5-parted. Corolla none. Stamens 8–16; filaments short, monadelphous at base; anther-cells separate, long, often worm-shaped, hanging from the apex of the filament. Styles 3, the upper face or stigmas cut-fringed (usually red). Capsule separating into 3 globular 2-valved carpels, rarely of only one carpel.—Herbs (ours annuals), or in the tropics often shrubs, resembling Nettles or Amaranths; the leaves alternate, petioled, with stipules. Clusters of sterile flowers with a minute bract; the fertile surrounded by a large and leaf-like cut-lobed persistent bract. (Ἀκαλήφη, an ancient name of the Nettle.)