552 CUCURBITACEAE 



Smith; San Bernardino, Jepson C087; Playa del Key, Los Angeles coast, Ahrams 2508; Chino, 

 Condit; Temescal Wash, Jepson 15C9; San Diego, M. F. Spencer 39. 



Refs. — CucuRiuTA roETimssiMA II.B.K. Nov. Gen. ct Sp. 2:123 (1817), type loc. Guanaxuato 

 ("Guanaiuato"), Mex., Ilumholdt ^ Bonpland (cf. Kew Bull. Misc. Inform. 1924:24); Bloch- 

 nian, Krvtlioa 1:9 (1894); Jepson, Man. GOO (1925). C. perennis Gray, Jour. Bost. Soc. Nat. 

 Hist. (3:193 (1850), "near San Antonio and New Braunfels," Tex., Fendler. 



2. C. palmata Wats. Coyote Melon. Stems trailing, several feet long; leaf- 

 blades palmately 5-eleft, 3 to 41/2 inches wide; calyx-tube of staminate flower 10 to 

 12 lines long; corolla 1% to 2% inches long; gourd 3 inches in diameter; seeds 

 thicker than in C. foetidissima. 



Dry plains and rocky mesas, 100 to 2400 feet: San Joaquin Valley; Death Val- 

 ley; south to the Colorado Desert and coastal Southern California. East to Ne- 

 vada, south to Mexico. Apr.-July. 



Logs. — Oakdale, Jepson 14,123; Friant (across San Joaquin Elver, in Madera Co.), Jepson 

 12,952; Greenfield near Bakersfield, Davy 1861; Pleasant Canon, Panamint Range, Ball 4" 

 Chandler 6920 ; Funeral Mts., Jepson 6910 ; Lavic, e. Mohave Desert, Jepson 15,462 ; Piute Creek, 

 e. Mohave Desert, N. C. Wilson; Riverside Mts., Colorado River, Jepson 5234; Indio Mt., Hall 

 5820; Borrego Spr., w. Colorado Desert, T. Brandegee; San Felipe Wash, e. San Diego Co., Jep- 

 son 8904; Canebrake Caiion, e. San Diego Co., Fosberg 8427; Riverside, Hall 2654; Menifee, 

 Alice King; Raniona, T. Brandegee; Potrero, w. San Diego Co., Cleveland. 



Refs. — CucuRBiTA PALMATA Wats. Proc. Am. Acad. 11:137 (1876), type loc. Cajon Valley, 

 San Diego Co., Cleveland; Jepson, Man. 660 (1925). 



CucuRBiTA CALIFORNICA Torr. ; Wats. Proc. Am. Acad. 11:138 (1876), type loc. "Sacra- 

 mento "Valley", Pickering. On account of the locality, this is most likely to be regarded as C. 

 palmata. It is, however, accepted as a species by Parry (Bull. Torr. Club 10:50) who emphasizes 

 the "lobulated" or "rugose-wrinkled" fruit (which condition might, perhaps, have been caused by 

 drying) and by Parish (Bot. Gaz. 65:342) who stresses the "harshly" pubescent herbage and 

 "hispid" ovary. The Searchlight, Nov., spm. (no. 10,413) of Parish, determined by him as C. 

 californica, is, however, no more harshly pubesce-nt and its ovary no more hispid than some other 

 desert specimens definitely belonging to C. palmata. The ovary in C. palmata appears to be 

 always densely rough-hirsutulose when young, but rapidly becomes glabrous or nearly so. 



CUCURBITA DIGITATA Gray, PI. Wright. 2:60 (1853), type loc. betw. the copper mines and 

 Crude's camp, N. Mex., Wright 1088. Leaf -blades palmately divided into linear-lanceolate lobes. 

 — New Mexico to Arizona (Cibola Valley, lower Colorado River, on the Arizona shore, Jepson 

 5281, therefore likely to be found in California). 



2. ECHINOCYSTIS T. & G. Big Root 



Trailing or climbing herbs (ours perennial) with branched tendrils and ivy- 

 like but thin leaves. Flowers small, greenish or white, monoecious, the staminate 

 in axillary racemes or panicles, the pistillate pediceled and solitary in the same 

 axils. Cali^'x-teeth very small or obsolete. Corolla rotate or campanulate with 5 

 to 7 lobes or lanceolate segments. Staminate flowers with the short filaments united 

 and the anthers distinct or coherent. Pistillate flowers with staminodia or none; 

 ovaiy globose or oblong, 2 to 4-celled, with 1 to 4 ovules in each cell; style very 

 short; stigma 2 or 3-parted or -lobed. Fruit spiny, somewhat fleshy or pulpy, 

 at length dry and bursting irregularly on the sides or near the apex. Seeds ovoid 

 or broadly oblong, more or less compressed, surrounded by a marginal line. — 

 Species 25, North and South America. (Greek echinos, a hedge-hog, and kustis, 

 a bladder, in reference to the spiny fruit. ) 



Biol, and geog. note. — The germination of the seed is hypogeous (cf. Gray, Structural Bot. 

 21). The root in Echinocystis fabacea develops into a globose or fusiform structure 6 to 9 inches 

 in diameter, or it may become elongated, 1 to 1^4 feet long, irregular in shape and sometimes re- 

 sembling a man's body, w^hence the folk name Man-root or Old-man-in-the-ground. The roots in 

 the other species develop likewise into large fleshy structures. The five species in California 

 have, on the whole, nearly distinct areas: Echinocystis macrocarpa belongs to the south coast, 

 E. oregana to the north coast, E. horrida to the southern Sierra Nevada and E. muricatus to the 

 northern Sierra Nevada. The only species found on the floor of the Great Valley is E. fabacea ; 

 it extends west into the Coast Ranges and overlaps somewhat the range of E. oregana but always 

 at lower altitudes, just as it extends east into the Sierra Nevada foothills at low altitudes. In 



