254 



THE VASCULAR CONNECTIONS AND THE 



STRUCTURE OF THE TENDRILS IN 



SOME CUCURBIT ACE AE 



By Kali Das Sawhney, M.Sc. 

 Professor of Biology, Islamia College, Peshawar. 



During 1917 and 1918 the writer investigated the anatomy of a 

 number of cultivated species belonging to the Cucurbitaceos. A few 

 writers have already dealt with the subject, and special mention 

 must be made of Tondera (4) who has carefully investigated the 

 vascular connections of a number of species of this family, and Muller 

 (3) who has worked out the anatomy of the tendrils. The writer 

 has re-examined some of the species worked out by these writers. 

 Their results have been confirmed in a general way. Since however 

 these two papers are not easily available to the ordinary reader and 

 many species investigated by the writer have not been investigated 

 by these writers and in view especially of some interesting results 

 obtained, it is proposed to give a brief summary of the results arrived 

 at by the writer. 



It is well-known that the vascular bundles in the stems of the 

 Cucurbitacese are generally arranged in two rings of five bundles 

 each. The bundles are usually known as bicollateral as they possess 

 phloem towards the inside of the xylem in addition to the external 

 phloem. The bundles of the inner ring are as a whole larger than 

 the outer bundles. These facts should be borne in mind in the 

 following description unless otherwise stated. 



Another point to be remembered is the position of the various 

 organs at a node near the leaf-axil. Usually a number of structures 

 are met with there arranged in a transverse row. In Benincasa, 

 cerifera, for example, in a ground plan of the node, beginning from 

 the left, we found the following :— a tendril, a vegetative bud, a 

 flower, a glandular structure looking like a rudimentary leaf. The last 

 structure is absent in some species, and has a different form in some 

 others. These differences would be indicated at the proper places. 



Methods 



In addition to free-hand sections other methods were also 

 employed in the investigation. In some cases complete series of 



