Momordica. | CUCURBITACE (Sond.) 491 
VI. MOMORDICA, L. 
Flowers moncecious or dicecious. Male peduncle with a large sessile 
bractea. Calyx 5-cleft, witha very short tube. Petals 5, much longer 
than the calyx-segments, Stamens 3, one-dimidiate ; anthers flexuous, 
free or connate. Ovary with 3 placente ; ovules horizontal. Style with 
3 stigmata. Pepo fleshy, not fibrous, prickly, bursting when ripe, with 
or without elastic force. Seeds compressed, enveloped in a fleshy aril- 
lus, reticulated. DC. Prod. 3, 311. W. & Arn. Prod. 348. Endl. Gen. 
5133. Naudin. 1. c p. 129. 
Annual or perennial, climbing herbs, with petiolate, lobed_or compound leaves, 
simple, rarely 2-fid tendrils, and yellow or white flowers. Name from mordeo, 
bite ; the seeds have the appearance of being bitten. 
- ANALYSIS OF THE SPECIES. 
Leaves reniform-cordate ... 
Leaves palmately-s-lobed ; bracteole cordate, toothed... ..._ (1) Balsamina. 
Leaves palmately-5-lobed ; bracteole reniform, quite entire ... (2) involucrata. 
Leaves bipinnate ... fe ss wie ue wis ot i 
1, M. Balsamina (Linn. Spec. 1453) ; annual, stem glabrous ; leaves 
palmately-5-lobed, deeply acute-toothed, glabrous, shining ; male pedun- 
~ cles 1-flowered ; with a toothed-cordate bracteole above the middle; calyx 
lobes acute ; fruit roundish-ovate, attenuated at both ends, tubercled, 
_ bursting irregularly and laterally; seeds with a red arillus. W. § Arn. 
Prod. 348. Lam. Ill.t.794, f.1. Blackw. herd. 6, t. 539,46. M. gariep- 
ensis, H. Meyer. 
Has. On the Gariep near Verleptpram, Drege ; Namaqualand, A. Wyley; Maga- 
lisberg and Vaalriver, Burke, Zeyher, 594, 595- Sept._May. (Herb. Hk. D. Sd.) 
Leaves 1-1} inches long and wide ; upper ones smaller. Tendrils simple. _Pedun- 
cles t-2-uncial. Bracteole about 3 lines broad, nearly as long as the pedicel ; in the 
female peduncle below the middle. Petals } inch long, twice longer than the calyx. 
Fruit orange-coloured, as large as a walnut. 
2. M. involucrata (E. Meyer in herb. Drege) ; stem glabrous ; leaves 
palmately-5-lobed, sinwate-dentate, teeth obtuse, mucronulate, glabrous ; 
male peduncles 1-flowered, with a very large, reniform, quite entire 
bracteole, close to the flower; calyx lobes roundish-obtuse, 2-3 times _ 
shorter than the petals ; fruit roundish-ovate, attenuated at both ends, 
tubercled, bursting irregularly and laterally ; seeds with a red arillus, 
Has. Port Natal, Drege, Krauss, (90), Dr. Grant, Hewitson, Gueinzius. April. 
(Herb. Hk. D. Sd.) : 
Closely allied to the preceding, the leaves are very similar, but the teeth are blunt, 
with a short mucro, and about 13-2 inches long and wide; the flowers are a little 
larger, the bracteole much larger, nearly $ inch broad, 3 lines broad and much longer 
than the pedicels. Stamens 3, free ; anthers cohering. The fruit, of the same 
size, seems to be smoother. 
3. M. clematidea (Sond.) ; quite smooth and glabrous ; stem angu- 
late ; tendrils simple or bifid ; leaves bipinnate, partial petioles sulcate 
above the middle, at the apex 3 or 5-parted, lateral ones alternately 
branched, leaflets ovate or suborbiculate dentate, mucronulate or inciso- 
serrate ; male peduncle 1-flowered, with a quite entire, cordate bract 
near the calyx ; petals 3 times longer than the ovate calyx-lobes, 
