native country, about eight feet high. Young yellow-brown, 
Stems angular. Spines three-parted, each segment subulate, 
spreading, often curved. Leaves obovate, petiolate, acute, cori¬ 
aceous, dark shining green, especially above, paler beneath; the 
margin coarsely and distantly serrated, and each serrature armed 
with a distinct spur. Racemes axillary, subcorymbose. Pedicels 
elongated, slender. Flowers globose; calyx, as well as corolla, of 
a uniform full golden-yellow or orange colour. Filaments with 
the anthers bursting by two lateral valves. Ovary subglobose, 
tapering upwards into the style and that surmounted by a peltate 
stigma, depressed in the centre. The shape of the entire pistil 
is that of the bottle-gourd (lageniform). 
Fig. 1. Petal and stamen. 2. Pistil;— magnified. 
