OP ARTS AND SCIENCES. 51 



equalling the tube; petals 15 lines long; anthers much curved: 

 fertile flowers on slender peduncles 1 to 14- inches long: ovary oblong, 

 thinly pubescent ; fruit H inches long, broadly ellipsoidal, abruptly 

 attenuate at base, very shortly beaked, smooth, with green marking ; 

 rind thin; placentas 4 (or sometimes 5?), distinct, pulpy, many- 

 seeded: seeds brown with whitish margin, 3 lines long. — Apparently 

 dioecious ; differing from the genus in the number and distinctness of 

 the placentas. Fruit edible, with the taste nearly of muskmelon, 

 ripening in September. Plains about Guaymas. (282.) 



Maximowiczia Sonor.e. Climbing, glabrous throughout, the 

 large root projecting above ground : leaves 4 inches broad or less, 

 twice 3-cleft nearly to the base, with broad sinuses, the lobes coarsely 

 sinuate-toothed : male flowers racemose, short-pedicellate, the calyx- 

 tube cylindrical, 3 lines long; petals pubescent, villous within, bifid: 

 fertile flowers on peduncles 2 or 3 lines long: ovary ovate, long-atten- 

 uate above; fruit ovate, abruptly stout-beaked, "amber-colored," 1] 

 to 1J inches long, smooth with a thick fleshy rind; placentas many- 

 (about 14-) seeded: seeds "covered with a red pulp," compressed, 

 rough-coated excepting the smooth margin, obovate or oblong-obovate 

 with a broad base, 3 lines long or more. — This species much resem- 

 bles M. Lindheimeri, but the leaves are more dissected and the ovary 

 and fruit more attenuate above, and the seeds though decidedly tur- 

 gid in the young fruit become compressed and are peculiar in their 

 generally very rugose-tuberculate surface. The green fruit is de- 

 scribed as having about 10 longitudinal rows of white dots. A decoc- 

 tion of the root is used as a cathartic. About Guaymas, and known 

 as " guarequi." (233.) 



Echinopepon ixsularts. Annual, finely and rather softly pubes- 

 cent, or glabrate : petioles not pilose; leaves broadly cordate, 11 to 8 

 inches broad, 5-lobed nearly to the middle, the short triangular lobes 

 acute, finely and acutely toothed, the sinuses acute : male flowers in 

 narrow panicles mostly exceeding the leaves ; corolla 5 -cleft, 1' to 2 

 lines broad ; anthers sigmoid, horizontal ; pistillate flowers solitary in 

 the same axils, on slender peduncles 3 or 4 lines long : ovary obliquely 

 oblong-ovate, subpubescent, echinate, attenuate and naked above; 

 fruit subjjlobose after the falling of the beak, about I lines in di- 

 ameter, covered with stiff straight spines \ lint' long, firm and Bpongy 

 within, 1-celled, 1-seeded: seed ascending, smooth, oblong-obovate, 

 subcompressed with a broad flat base, 2 lines long. dark. — The ovary 

 appears to have an upper cell with an abortive' ovule. Common on 

 S. Pedro Martin Island. (409.) 



