spurge family: Meaning and Definition of

spurge' fam"ily

1. the large plant family Euphorbiaceae, characterized by herbaceous plants, shrubs, and trees having milky juice, simple alternate leaves or no leaves, usually petalless flowers often with showy bracts, and capsular fruit, and including cassava, croton, crown-of-thorns, poinsettia, snow-on-the-mountain, spurge, and the plants that produce castor oil, rubber, and tung oil.