63 CUCURBITACEZ. 
of all kinds, and for making the native guitar or Tambur 
The fruit often attains an enormous size, and is used as 
buoy for crossing rivers and transporting baggage. Among 
the Hindus as amongst the Greeks gourds are considered to b 
emblematic of fecundity, prosperity, and good health. Ther 
are two varieties of the bottle gourd, a sweet one, called 
Sanskrit Aldbu, and a bitter one known as Katutumbi. Th 
fruit varies much in shape. The outer rind is hard am 
ligneous, aad encloses a spongy white flesh, very bitter, an 
powerfully emetic and purgative, The seeds are grey, fla 
and elliptical, surrounded by a border which is inflated at th 
sides but notched at the apex; their kernels are white, oil 
and sweet. In India the pulp in combination with other drug 
is used in native practice as a purgative; it is also applie 
_ externally as a poultice. The seeds were originally one of th 
four cold cucurbitaceous seeds of the ancients, but pumpk 
seeds are now usually substituted for them. : 
The Hindus administer a decoction of the leaves in jaundic 
it has a purgative action, . 
Toxicology.x—Dr. Burton Brown notices the poisonous pr 
perties of the bitter variety of this gourd, the symptom 
observed being similar to those after poisoning by elaterium ¢ 
colocynth. 
- BENINCASA CERIFERA, Savi. 
Fig.—BRheede Hort. Mal. viii., t. 8, 
Hab.—Cultivated throughout India. The fruit. 
_ Vernacular.—Petha (Hind.), Kumra (Beng.), Kohala (Mar. 
Birda-gimiidu (Tel.), Bhurun-koholun (Guz.), Kumbuli (Tam. 
Kuvali (Mal.). Rago. 
History, Uses, &c.—Dautt in his Hindu Materia Me 
gives us the following account of the medicinal use o 
gourd which is called Kushménda in Sanskrit :—“ The 
is considered tonic, nutritive and. diuretic, and a 
cheemoptysis and other hemorrhages from int ernal org 
eee. 
“i 
