Luffa. MONOECIA SYNGENESIA, 715 
part of the fruit near the apex. The young’ unripe fruit is 
eaten by the natives in their curries, and other stews. 
4. L. amara. R. 
Stems slender, Leaves slightly from five to seven-lobed. 
Male flowers racemed ; the female ones solitary. Fruit ob- 
long, with ten sharp ridges. 
Beng. Kerula. 
Teling, Sheti beera. 
This species grows wild in hedges and dry uncultivated” 
places, It flowers during the latter part of the rains and tlie 
cold season. 
It is Cucumis indicus striatus spare donata, of Pluke~ 
net, t. 172. f. 1. which is a very good figure of it, wa 
Stems, leaves, inflorescence, and flowers asin Luffa acutan: 
gula, Fruit oblong, three or four inches long, and one in 
diameter, tapering equally towards each end, ten-angled, as 
in L, acutangula, when ripe, dry, of a gray colour, and re- 
plete with the same dry fibres; the lid or stopple which till 
then shuts up the apex drops off and the seeds fall out. 
Seeds of a blackish gray colour, marked With elevated gene 
black dots. 
Every part of this plant is remarkably bitter, the fruit is is” 
violently cathartic and emetic. The juice’ of the roasted’ : 
young fruit is applied. to the temples by the natives to cure — 
headach, The ripe seeds either in infusion or substance are — 
used by them to vomit and to purge. 
5. L. racemosa, R. 
Annual, Leaves round cordate,- five-sided. Racemes 
axillary, minute, ineffective, male flowers below, and’ many 
fertile hermaphrodite ones over the rest. Fruit short, cylin- 
dric, obtuse, smooth, and marked with phy flat au enbers" 
ribs, 
Caltivated in the interior parts of pps fort its eseulent 
4Lb2 : =i 
