340 Ibervillea Sonorae 



II. HISTORICAL. 



(i) A genus under the name of Sicydium was described by 

 Schlechtendal in 1832 (LinncBa, vii, p. 388), based upon Sicydium 

 Schiedeanum, a Mexican plant. 



(2) Gray described in 1850 Sicydium Lindheimeri {Bost. Jour. 

 Nat. Hist., vi, p. 194) from Texas. 



(3) Sicydium Lindheimeri was made the type of a new genus, 

 Maximowiczia, by Cogniaux, in 1881 {D. C. Monog. Phan., iii, p. 



726). 



(4) Maximowiczia Sonorce was described by Sereno Watson 

 in 1889 {Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts and Sci., xxiv, p. 51). 



(5) As the name Maximowiczia had been used before 1881 for 

 another genus (by Ruprecht in 1859, for a genus of Magnoliacese) , 

 Greene {Erythea, iii, p. 75, 1895) substituted for the cucurbita- 

 ceous genus the name Ibervillea, and Maximowiczia SonorcB thus 

 became Ibervillea SonorcB. 



III. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE SPECIES SONOR^. 



Ibervillea belongs to the Cucurbitaceae or Gourd family, and 

 has been found in Mexico, New Mexico, Texas, and California. 

 As Watson's (4) is the only full description of the species Sonorae, 

 it is quoted below. 



Climbing, glabrous throughout, the large root (stem) projecting above 

 ground; leaves four inches broad or less, twice three-cleft nearly to base, 

 with broad sinuses, the lobes coarsely sinuate-toothed; male flowers race- 

 mose, short-pedicellate, the calyx-tube cylindrical, 3 lines long; petals 

 pubescent, villous within, bifid; fertile flowers on peduncles 2 to 3 lines 

 long; ovary ovate, long-attenuate above; fruit ovate, abruptly stout 

 beaked, amber colored li to li inch long, smooth with a thick fleshy rind; 

 placentae many (about 14) seeded; seeds covered with a red pulp, com- 

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

 obovate with a broad base, 3 lines long or more. 



This species much resembles M. Lindheimeri, but the leaves are more 

 dissected and the ovary and fruit more attenuate above, and the seeds 

 though decidedly turgid in the young fruit, become compressed and are 

 pecuhar in their generally very rugose-tuberculate surface. The green 

 fruit is described as having about ten longitudinal rows of white dots. 



The upper side of the swollen underground portion where it is 

 exposed to the light is of a green-gray color owing to chlorophyll 

 just beneath the periderm, while the upper side is thicker, brown 



