714 MONOECIA SYNGENESIA. Luffa. 
dicels have a glandular bracte near the base, and are articu- 
lated a little above it. FEMALE FLowERs rather larger, axil- 
lary, solitary, peduncled. Fruit clavate, obtuse, pretty 
smooth, ten-angled ; angles sharp but smooth, about a foot 
long, and from two to three inches in diameter; when ripe dry 
and Peeples with dry fibres, Seeds black, ireerubucly pitted. 
The half grown fruit is one of the best native vegetables we 
have in India; the natives. use .it much in their curries; when 
peeled, for the skin is hard, boiled, and dressed with butter, 
pepper, and salt, they are little inferior to green pease. 
Note. There is the rudiment of a lid at the apex of the 
fruit of the species, but it never separates spontaneously ; this 
circumstance is to be attended to, .to distinguish it from Cu- 
cumis operculatus. 
3.L, clavata, R. 
Leaves superficially from five to seven-angled, the posterior 
lobes rounded, margins minutely-dentate.. Male flowers on 
long. peduncled racemes; the female ones solitary ; fruit cla- 
vate, very long and slender, 
A native of the interior parts of Hindoosthan, . The seeds 
were sent by Colonel Alexander Kyd at Allahabad to the 
Botanic garden at Calcutta, where the plants blossom and 
produce fruit during the cold season. 
Stem scandent, several fathoms long, five-sided, smooth. 
Leaves slightly from five to seven-lobed ; posterior lobes 
rounded, the rest more acute, margin slightly dentate, pretty 
smooth on both sides, about six inches each way, when full 
grown. Flowers very long, of adeep yellow. The male ones 
on axillary, long-peduncled racemes, The female ones axil- 
lary, solitary, supported on peduncles about the length of the 
germ. Bractes of the male flowers solitary, one-flowered, 
oval, small, fleshy, glandular, inserted on the pedicel. Fruit 
pendulous, of a long, slender, clavate shape, three-celled; 
when ripe dry, and the partitions composed of dry fibres. | 
Seeds numerous, thin, arise lodged in the thickened 
7 
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