To illustrate the wide variations in the Croton leaves, specimens of seven different plants are shown in the upper right hand corner of Plate X and one more, with spiral leaves, is shown in the lower left hand corner. These eight are perhaps the ones most often seen in Honolulu, but they do not exhaust the local list, and botanical books name many more varieties.
Croton shrubs vary in size, but most of them grow ten or twelve feet tall. Their colors are brightest when growing in full sunlight. Croton leaves remain fresh for some time after they are cut, so that they lend themselves to unusual decorations. The proper name, Codiaeum, may have been derived from the Greek word for head, suggesting that the leaves were used to make crowning wreaths.
The Croton flowers are small and white, growing in slender racemes in the axils of the leaves. There are separate male and female flowers.
ERANTHEMUM _Pseuderanthemum atropurpureum_ (_Bull_) _Radlkofer_ (_Erantbemum purpureum_)
A shrub which might be casually mistaken for one of the Crotons, because of the rich coloring of its leaves, is called Eranthemum. The leaf colors are, however, purplish, rose and pink, hues that do not occur in the Crotons. These plants vary greatly among themselves, some having leaves that are mottled in green and white, others with colors that range through the pinkish purples to dark maroon. There is a tendency for the young leaves to have the brightest colors and to turn green as they grow older. The leaves are opposite, strongly veined and rather unevenly margined. The plant belongs to the Acanthus family, and is a native of the South Sea islands. (Plate X, 3)
A variety of the purple is the _eldorado_, a horticultural variation, as bright and sunny in its green and gold coloring as the former is dark and rich, deserving its name of eldorado, the golden. The pointed leaves are margined and blotched in bright yellow, usually with yellow veins. They grow in opposite pairs and have a tendency to appear in bunches near the ends of the stem. The new leaves are in two tones of yellowish green, the more striking coloration of clear yellow developing as they age. (Plate X, 4)
There is another Eranthemum, bearing purple and white flowers, illustrated in plate VI.