Author:
Jan Scholten
Book:
Wonderful Plants
Type:
Picture
Chapter:
644.34.00
644.34.00 Euphorbiaceae
English: Spurge family.
Dutch: Wolfsmelkachtigen.
Botany: 300 genera, 5000 species; herbs, shrubs and trees; unisexual; small, highly reduced flowers, accentuated by pseudanthal states; some are like cacti with thorns; leaves alternate; latex.
Content: milky latex, with caoutchouc, rubber; diterpenes; triterpenes, triterpen esters, lanosterol, cycloartenol, 24-methylene-cycloartenol, decan acid, dodecan acid, DOPA; polyhydroxy-diterpenes, which are cancer promotors; forbol, ingenol; phenolic acids; lectins.
Picrodendraceae: 24 genera; 80 species; subtropical to tropical; previously known as the subfamily Oldfieldioideae of the Euphorbiaceae.
Phyllanthaceae: 60 genera; 2000 species; tropics; previously include in Euphorbiaceae. Irvingiaceae: 3 genera; 20 species.
Taxonomy
Euphorbiaceae and Peraceae form a monophyletic group in the Apg3 classification, including Picrodendraceea and Phyllantaceae. Phyllantaceae were a part of Euphorbiaceae in the past. They are treated here as one group. Rafflesiaceae, a parasitic plant family, is member of the Euphorbiaceae group in the Apg3 classification.
In the Plant theory Rafflesiaceae is treated as separate and placed in Subphase 7, being parasitic. Euphorbiaceae is treated as one family with Peraceae, Phyllanthaceae and Picrodendraceae. Euphorbiaceae is placed in Subphase 4.
Introduction
Central here are the suppressed emotions and anger due to loyalty and dependence on stronger people and authorities. It is like a young wolf in the pack that has to obey the leader and to suppress its own will and sexuality in order to have food and survive. They please the leader but feel they have a right to be part of the group, society. If they get the impression that their position is not accepted, they become angry, but they suppress that and keep adapting and smiling.
They are in the position of a minor, accepted on the condition they adapt to the leader. They will adapt and please the leaders as they feel they have to become a real part of the group, fully accepted and central in the group. They see that as necessary for their survival.
Unloved
They often have the feeling that they are unloved or no good. There is often a history of lack of love, especially mother love. The mother can be absent or hard, instead of loving and nurturing. It can express itself as breast problems. Their leaders are often so domineering and belittling that they develop the feeling that they are worthless and bad.
Delusion others are hard
They feel that other people are hard on them. They are unloved, dominated, belittled. Others do not listen to them. It is like in the Latin phrase “Homo homini lupus est”, meaning "man is a wolf to his fellow man". They present their attitude often in a very polite friendly way. They act "like a wolf in sheep's clothing".
Suppressed emotions
They have to suppress a lot of emotions, mostly their anger. They adapt to the group and howl with the wolves in the woods. This gives them the feeling that they are bad.
Aggression
In contrast to the suppression there are violent outbursts, such as diarrhoea, vomiting, herpes zoster and emotionally. The suppression affects their nerves, as in herpes zoster. They can go to alcohol in order to forget and relieve the emotions. Their outbursts are not allowed, though, thus leading to loyalty conflicts and the feeling of being a bad person.
Loyalty
They feel very loyal to those who dominate them. They see them as stronger, knowing better and they distrust themselves. The loyalty binds them, gives the sensation of being bound. That becomes tighter and tighter and they cannot be open anymore. They are constricted, limited, narrowed down.
Dependence
The loyalty is also accentuated in their dependence. This dependence can be justified as in the situation of a child but can also be created by the person himself out of the feeling that he is not worth much.
Sensitive, religious
They are very sensitive, often spiritually minded. Their sensitivity leads them to feel very precisely what the leaders expect them to do. Their sensitivity often has a religious aspect, a spiritual feeling of the world. In the Materia Medica we see it as "religious" and "praying".
Follow others
By following the road of the leader they leave their own spiritual track in life, so they feel dishonest and disloyal to themselves. This following of others is botanically expressed in the fact that often their flowers are small but as a compensation they have large pseudo-flowers.
Fear own strength
They have a fear of their own strength. They cannot imagine that they are strong, good or beautiful. They feels arrogant when they think that they are good. They let others be bigger and stronger and so become dominated. In religious groupings it is often seen as arrogance or even blasphemy to think of yourself as strong and good.
Somatising
They have the tendency to somatise their problems due to the loyalty conflict. The conflict can only be expressed physically. The fear and delusions have hardly any content but have many modalities from physical complaints. By contrast, the dreams reveal quite a lot.
Situations of incest, religious sects
A typical situation is that of incest in a child. They tell the mother but the mother denies it for fear of the rest of the family and the public, so they suppress their feelings. They feel guilty and bad that they have to lie about it. Then there must be something wrong with them. But they are too weak as a child to do anything about it and they feel loyal to her mother.
Another situation is that of religious sects. We see many of the above-mentioned aspects: domination, not following their own path, sensitivity, religiosity, fear of their own strength.
Mind
Desire: freedom, space.
Aversion company, wants to be quiet, indisposed to talk.
Religious, praying; member of religious groups, churches or sects.
Caring.
Suspicious.
Startled, < shock.
Anger, destructive < pain, biting himself.
Despair.
Confusion, stupefaction, stupor, coma.
Introversion: thoughtful, introspection, meditation.
Domineering others or avoiding being dominated by lies and deceptions.
Death <<< vexation.
Fear: being rejected, an outcast, scapegoat; not valued.
Delusion: being bound, dominated, limited, imprisoned, stuck.
Delusion: being persecuted, poisoned, possessed, pursued; the same man is walking before and after him.
Delusion: devil; being despised, forsaken; things enlarged, elevated; nose is double.
Dream: ugly horses, putrid oxen; swimming in yellow, dirty, marsh water.
General
Sensation: bound, tight; constriction, band, string, held, gripped, tied.
Weather: hot; chilly < cold: < in room, > outside.
Sweat: copious.
Desire: drinks, thirst.
Physical: < motion, walking, < touch, < noise, < stool; < rest; > lying; > continued motion; clothing is too heavy.
Body
General: cancer pains; pain burning, acrid, pressing, stitch, << touch, cold; dropsy.
Vertigo: faintness.
Head: headache pressing, burning; vertex: itch, numb.
Eyes: pain, red, inflamed; herpes zoster; burning; blind.
Face: burning, herpes zoster, herpes labialis; sensation insect on face.
Mouth: taste bitter; !! toothache, root pain.
Throat: pain.
Chest: milk absent, scanty, copious; mastitis.
Lungs: hiccough, asthma, bronchitis.
Stomach: pain, burning, empty, full; waterbrash, heartburn, belching; nausea, vomiting.
Abdomen: !; pain, colic, burning; belching, waterbrash; vomiting, sudden, violent < stool.
Rectum: !!; diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, salmonella, stool offensive, putrid, yellow, like rice water; cramp << cholera, feet; pain, burning, ineffectual straining, prolapse.
Genital: herpes simplex, genitalis.
Limbs: pain bones, periosteum.
Skin: !!; vesicles, genital herpes, herpes labialis, herpes zoster << touch, cold; bullae, pustules; ulcers, necrotising, bleeding; leprosy.