Monographs Details:
Authority:
Acevedo-RodrÃguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.
Acevedo-RodrÃguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.
Family:
Euphorbiaceae
Euphorbiaceae
Description:
Genus Description - Monoecious herbs, subshrubs or less often shrubs or small trees, prostrate to erect, usually profusely branched from a woody base, glabrous or variously pubescent, producing abundant milky latex. Leaves simple, opposite, usually inequilateral and oblique at base, with entire or serrate margins; stipules minute. Flowers without perianth, produced within a cyathium, the cyathia solitary or clustered in cymules in leaf axils; cyathium cup-shaped, 5-toothed at apex, with 4 glands, each bearing a petal-like appendage. Staminate flowers few to many, consisting of 1 stamen. Pistillate flowers solitary, central in cyathium; ovary of 3 carpels, pedicel elongate, the carpels with a solitary ovule; styles 3, free or united at base, bifid. Fruit a 3-lobed capsule with 1 seed per locule, on a long exserted, reflexed pedicel.
Genus Description - Monoecious herbs, subshrubs or less often shrubs or small trees, prostrate to erect, usually profusely branched from a woody base, glabrous or variously pubescent, producing abundant milky latex. Leaves simple, opposite, usually inequilateral and oblique at base, with entire or serrate margins; stipules minute. Flowers without perianth, produced within a cyathium, the cyathia solitary or clustered in cymules in leaf axils; cyathium cup-shaped, 5-toothed at apex, with 4 glands, each bearing a petal-like appendage. Staminate flowers few to many, consisting of 1 stamen. Pistillate flowers solitary, central in cyathium; ovary of 3 carpels, pedicel elongate, the carpels with a solitary ovule; styles 3, free or united at base, bifid. Fruit a 3-lobed capsule with 1 seed per locule, on a long exserted, reflexed pedicel.