From the Latin excoecare — to blind, alluding to the caustic sap of the foliage.
Shrubs or trees, evergreen, perennial,male and female flowers on the same plant; stems and foliage with copious white latex. Indumentum of simple, multicellular hairs. Stipules entire, inconspicuous, soon shed. Leaves alternate, stalked, unlobed, penninerved, glands at base of blade; margins entire or scalloped to saw-toothed. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, racemose or spike-like, solitary or fascicled, unisexual with flowers in dense clusters. Male flowers stalkless to stalked; calyx lobes 2-3, overlapping, free and more or less equal; petals absent; disk absent; stamens 2-8, filaments free and attached to a slightly raised receptacle. Female flowers stalked; calyx lobes 2-3, overlapping, free or shortly fused; petals absent; disk absent; ovary 2-3-chambered, ovules 1 per chamber; styles 2 or 3, free or united, simple. Fruits capsular, dehiscent, 3-lobed, surface smooth. Seeds roundish to ovoid, ecarunculate.
About 40 species in the Old World tropics and subtropics, 4 species in Australia. 1 non-Australian species is commonly cultivated.
Cuttings or seeds.
Shrubs or trees; stems and foliage with copious white latex; flowers not arranged in cyathia.
Airy Shaw (1980).
Source: (2002). Euphorbiaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 3. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 2. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
