CRO'TON (Neo-Lat., from (1k. Kporwr, kroton, tick, shrub bearing the casto•-berry, which was thought to resemble a tick). A genus of plants of the natural order 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 whieb they belong. Among these, the most important is the purging eroton (Croton tig linm), 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, a more mild purgative; and the seeds (eroton seeds or filly are an extremely powerful drastic purga tive, formerly much employed in Europe, but latterly disused on account of violence and un certainty of action, although still valuable as yielding croton oil (q.v.). They are oval. or oval-oblong, about the size of field-beaus. The oil is obtained mostly by expression, and partly by treating the cake with alcohol. Other species possess similar properties. Very different prop erties are found in the species which yield cas carilla (q.v.) and eopalehe (q.v.) barks, to
which a great resemblance exists in the barks of a number of species, natives chiefly of South America. Other species are still more aromatic, and some delightfully fragrant, eontaining in great abundance a thickish. balsamic sap. The sap of Croton grotissinms is much employed as a perfume and cosmetic at the Cape of Good Hope; that of Croft)), origanifolins is used in the West Indies as a substitute for balsam of co paiva ; that of Croton flarens, also West Indian. furnishes cult de Nantes by distillation; and the balsamic sap of some South American species is dried and used as incense. Croton /accifortiR, which grows abundantly in Ceylon. is an impor tant lae-tree. There are quite a number of spe cies in the United States, chiefly in the South west, but they have little economic value. The plants extensively' cultivated by llorD4ts in hot houses as crotons belong to the genus Codiceum. They have very curious and often highly colored leaves.