Flora Medica

370. C. suberosum HBK. ii. 86. Salt places near Acapulco.Branches corky. Leaves ovate-roundish, acute, cordate, entire,thickish, hoary and downy above, shaggy and white beneath, with noglands. Flowers dioecious. Employed in Peru as an aromatic purgative.371. C. balsamiferum Linn. Mant. 125. Jacq. amer. 255.t. 162. f. 3. Common in Tortola, Martinique and Caraas, onrocky stonyA cliffs.branched diffuse shrub 3-4 feet high, abounding in every part in athick balsamic brownish balsam. Branches closely covered with rustcolotiredfur. Leaves tomentose, ovate-lanceolate, obtuse, mucronate,slightly cordate, with 2 urceolate glands at the base underneath. Spikesterminal, compact, chiefly male, female at the base. A spirituous liqueurcalled Eau de Mantes, used in irregular menstruation, is distilled from it.372. C. perdicipes A. de St. H. pi. us. 59. used in Brazil as acure for syphilis, and as a useful diuretic.373. C. campestris Id. 60. has a purgative root, and is employedin syphilitic disorders.*#* Several kinds of Croton, called Orelha d' Onca in Brazillow hairy shrubs, which grow on elevated grassy plains, furnish intheir roots a good substitute for Senega. They stimulate and promotethe secretions especially of the pituitous membranes. They areadministered with success in atonic catarrhs, asthma, and even in phthisistuberculosa. Martins.RICINUS.Flowers monoecious. Calyx 3-5-parted, valvate. Petals 0.$ Filaments numerous, . unequally polyadelphous cells of the;anther distinct, below the apex of the filament. ? . Style short ;stigmas 3, deeply bipartite, oblong, coloured, feathery ; ovaryglobose, 3-celled, with an ovule in each cell. Fruit generallyprickly, capsular, tricoccous. Trees, shrubs, or herbaceous plantssometimes becoming arborescent. Leaves alternate, stipulate,palmate, peltate, with glands at the apex of the petiole. Flowersin terminal panicles, the lower male, the upper female ; all articulatedwith their peduncles, and sometimes augmented bybiglandular bracts. A. de J. chiefly.374. R. communis Linn, sp.pl. 1430. Eoxb.fi. ind. iii. 689.Woodv. 171. t. 61. S. and C. i. t. 50. (Rheede ii. t. 32.)Cultivated all over India.A glaucous plant, extremely variable in size : when cultivated in GreatBritain an annual 3 or 4 feet high in India sometimes becoming a pretty;large tree "of many years' duration, atleast such is Roxburgh's statement.Clusius saw it in Spain with a trunk as large as a man's body, and 15-20feet and high, Ray found it in Sicily as big as our common alder trees,woody and long lived; but Willdenow considers the arborescentkinds which are more than annual as distinct species, which he callsR. viridis, africanus, lividus and inermis ; they do not appear however tobe anything more than mere varieties. Root perennial or annual,long, thick, and fibrous. Stems round, thick, jointed, channelled,183 X 4