192 . 



Geography, Natives of South America; unknown, except as objects 

 of cultivation, beyond that continent. 



Properties. The fruit of the Papaw is eaten, when cooked, and is 

 esteemed by some persons ; but it appears to have Httle to recommend it. 

 Its great pecuHarities are, that the juice of the unripe fruit is a most power- 

 ful and efficient vermifuge, the powder of the seed even answers the same 

 purpose, and that a principal constituent of this juice is fibrine, a principle 

 otherwise supposed peculiar to the animal kingdom and to fungi. The tree 

 has, moreover, the singular property of rendering the toughest animal sub- 

 stances tender, by causing a. separation of the muscular fibre ; its very vapour 

 even does this ; newly-killed meat suspended among the leaves, and even 

 old hogs and old poultry, becoming tender in a few hours, when' fed on 

 th'e leaves and fruit. See an excellent account of the Papaw by Dr. Hooker, 

 in the Bot. Mag. 2898. 



Example. Carica. 



CLXXXI. CUCURBITACEiE. Tur. Goird Trihk. 



CucuRBiTACEvE, Jiiss. Gen. 393. (178.0); Aug. St. Hil. in Mem. Afus. .'.). 1!)0-221. 



(1823); Dec. Prodr. 3. 297- (1828); Liudl. Synops. 319. (1829) Nandhiko- 



• BE^, Aug. de St. Hil. 1. c. (1823) ; Turpin Diet, des Se. Atlas. (?) 



Diagnosis. Monopetalous dicotyledons, with an inferior ovarium, 

 parietal placenta}, succulent fruit, a regular corolla, and no albumen. 



Anomalies. The ripe fruit is divided into 3 or 4 cells in some Momor- 

 dicas, and is occasionally dry, opening by valves at the apex. 



Essential Character Flowers usually unisexual, sometimes hermaphrodite. 



Calyx 5-toothed, sometimes obsolete. Corolla 5-parted, scarcely distinguishable from tlie 

 calyx, very cellular, with strongly marked reticulated veins, sometimes fringed. Stamens 

 .5, either distinct, or cohering in 3 parcels; anthers 2-celled, very lon^ and sinuous. 

 Ovarium inferior, 1-celled, with 3 parietal placenta; style short; stigmas very thick, 

 velvety or fringed. Fruit ileshy, more or less succulent, crowned by the scar of the calyx, 

 1-celled, with 3 parietal placenta?. Seeds flat, ovate, enveloped in an arillus, whicli is 

 feither juicy, or dry and membranous ; testa coriaceous, often thick at tlie margin ; embryo 

 flat, with no albumen ; cotyledons foliaceous, veined ; radicle next the hilum. — Hoots annual 

 or perennial, fibrous or tuljerous. Stem succulent^ climbing by means of tendrils formed 

 by abortive leaves (stipulw, St. Hil.). Leaves palmated, or with palmate ribs, very succu- 

 lent, covered with numerous asperities. Flowers white, red, or yellow. 



Affinities. Placed by Auguste de St. Hilaire and Decandolle be- 

 tween MyrtacesB, to which they appear to me to have little affinity, and 

 Passifloreae, to which they are so closely allied, that they scarcely difler, 

 except in their monopetalous corolla, sinuous stamens, unisexual flowers, 

 and.exalbuminous seeds, the habit of both being exactly the same. By the 

 former of these two writers a very particular account of the structure of 

 the order has been given in the Manoires du Museum. He adopts the 

 opinion of Jussieu, that the apparent corolla of these plants is really a calyx, 

 considering the apparent calyx to be merely certain external appendages. 

 This view I cannot follow, any more than the notion of Passiflorea) being 

 apetalous : however ingenious the reasoning may be upon which such theories 

 are founded, they appear to me to be overstrained, and entirely at variance 

 with both analogy and actual structure. In discussing the affinities of the 

 order, which he does much at length, he remarks, that Carica (now the 

 type of the order Papayacea>) should l)e excluded ; that the tendrils of Cu- 

 curbitaceee are transformed stipulir, but scarcely analogous to the stipul'jo of 

 Passifloretp ; that there is an affinity between the order and Campannlacca-, 



