CUCURBITACE.E. 235 



1}^ in. long, 3 — 4 lines in diameter : seeds minutely tubercitlate, 1^,^ lines 

 broad. — Very common in the mountain districts at low altitudes, and on 

 the plains near the foothills. 



Okder XXXV. CUCURBITACE/E. 



Haller, Enumeratio Methodica Stirpium Helvetise, 34 & 505 (1742) ; 

 Juss. Gen. 393 (1789). 



Herbs, tendril-bearing, trailing or climbing, the herbage commonly 

 scabrous and more or less succulent. Flowers axillary to the alternate 

 leaves, solitary or clustered, unisexual. Calyx-tube coherent with the 

 ovary ; limb of 5 lobes or teeth. Corolla with petals more or less united 

 into a cup or tube. Stamens 5, more or less united ; anthers 2-celled. 

 or one of them 1-celled. Ovary 2— 3- celled ; style often wanting ; 

 stigma 3 — 5-lobed. Fruit large, fleshy. Seeds large, usually compressed, 

 exalbummous ; cotyledons fleshy, foliaceous or hypogeous. 



1. CUCURBITA, Pliny (Squash. Pumpkin). Our species perennial, 

 prostrate. Leaves cordate, lobed. Flowers solitary. Calyx-tube cam- 

 panulate, 5-lobed. Corolla campanulate, 5-cleft to the middle or lower, 

 the lobes recurved. Sterile fl. with stamens at the base of the corolla ; 

 filaments tlistinct ; anthers more or less united, flexuous. Fertile fl. 

 with 3 rudimentary stamens ; ovary oblong, with 3 placentae and many 

 horizontal ovules ; style short ; stigmas 3, 2-lobed. Fruit fleshy, in de- 

 hiscent, in our species with a hard shell-like rind. 



1. C. fflPtidissima, HBK. Gen. et Sp. ii. 123 (1817) : C. pen-nnh 

 (James), Gray, Journ. Bost. Soc. vi. 193 (1850). Koot perennial, large, 

 fusiform : stems many feet long, trailing : leaves fleshy, scabrous, 

 whitish beneath, triangular-cordate, acute, the slight lobes rounded or 

 angled, mucronate-denticulate ; petiole shorter than the blade : tendrils 

 3 — 5-cleft : fl. 3 — 4 in. long, yellow : corolla-lobes obtuse, mucronate : 

 calyx-tube % in. long, the linear lobes as long : fr. globose, 2 — 3 in. 

 thick, smooth, yellow, on a slender peduncle 1 — 2 in. long ; shell filled 

 with a fibrous bitter pulp : seed thin, obovate, 4—5 lines long, obtusely 

 margined.— From San Joaquin Co. southward, on low plains ; herbage 

 very heavy-scented. 



2. C. paliuata, Wats. Proc. Am. Acad. xi. 137 (1876). Smaller, canes- 

 cent with a short scabrous indument and a more appressed pl^bescence 

 on the foliage : leaves thick, 2—3 in. broad, of round-cordate outline, 

 palmately 5-cleft to the middle ; lobes lanceolate, acuminate, often 

 obtusely toothed near the base : fl. 3 in. long, on stout peduncles : 

 corolla-lobes acutish : calyx-tube 1 in. long, the teeth broader than in 



