CRO'TON, a genus of plants of the natural order euphorbiacce, having male and female flowers generally on the same plant; the male flowers with five petals; the female flowers with three styles, which are either forked or divided into many branches; the capsules 3-celled, with one seed in each cell. The species are numerous, mostly tropical or sub tropical trees or shrubs, a few herbaceous. Sonic of them possess in a very high degree the:acrid properties so characteristic of the order to which they belong. Among these, the most important is the PURGING C. (C. iigUUM), a small tree, a native of India and the more easterly tropical parts of Asia. The leaves are extremely acrid; the wood in a fresh state is a drastic, and in a dried state, at more mild purgative; and the seeds (C. seeds or ally seeds) are an extremely powerful drastic purgative, formerly much employed in Europe, but latterly disused on account of violence and uncertainty of action, although still %tillable as yielding C. oil (q.v.). They are oval, or oval-oblong, about the size of field-lieans. So great is their acridity, that dangerous effects have ensued from working for some hours with packages of them. The oil is obtained mostly by expression, and
partly by treating the cake with alcohol.—The wood and seeds of a parana are employed in some parts of the east in the same way as those of C. tiglium; and the wood is ,Supposed to be the lignunt parana or vanillm of commerce. Other species possess similar properties.—Very different are the properties of the species which yield cascarilla (q. v ) and copalche (q.v.) barks, to which a great resemblance exists in the barks of a number of species, natives chiefly of America.—Other species arc still more aromatic, and some delightfully fragrant, containing in great alanidanee a thickish, balsamic sap. The sap of C. gratissimas is much employed as a perfume and cosmetic. at the of Good Hope; that of C. orzganifolinm is used in the West Indies as a substitute for balsam of copaiva; that of C. balsam:Tema, also West Indian, furnishes can de mantes by dis till4on; and the balsamic sap of some South American species is dried and used as incense.