ILLUSTR.ATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY. 29 



of the whole world, which T shall not ohject to your publishing as abridged characters of the 

 genera of the tribe Cucurhiteae of Schrader." 



At the conclusion of the conspectus he continues,— '' These sc^ti to he all the genera 

 known, that truly belong to Cuc?irf)/.(eae, they have all unisexual flowers. Grofioviahas them 

 bisexual, but is otherwise very clo.sely allied. Atlacia cannot be of this order, unless we 

 suppose the description quite erroneous ; and if so, Loureiro may have had before him, in part 

 at least, the Te//amaperfa;a / Myrianthm cannot belong to Cucurbilaceae. Thladianthus 

 Runge is imperfectly described as to the stamens, but may perhaps form a 7th tribe, 



" I have laboured under great difficulty in making out these characters, partly because 

 the published descriptions were very imperfect, partly because I had not several of the genera 

 and partly, from the extreme difficulty of examining the anthers after being dried and pressed! 

 I would therefore suggest to you and other Indian botanists, to re-examine all the Indian ones 

 on living plants, and have drawings made, paying particular attention to the representation of 

 the anthers. , 



'* At first you may, as I did, confuse section 7 with section 9, but if you will compare the 

 flower of Citrullus, Momordica or Lagenarea with Cucurbita or Coccinia, you will readily see 

 the difference. In section 7, the connectivum is lobed, and the anther cells are placed, along 

 the edge of the lobes— in sections S and 9 the connectivum is not itself lobed, but the anther 

 cell is bent," (it winds upwards and downwards along the back of the connectivum) 



War 



took 



of these 



occasion, as opportunity ottered, to compare some of the 

 sectional characters with recent specimens, and feel disposed to think the sections too numer- 

 ous, and not sufficiently distinguished. I have not yet succeeded in comparing the whole, but 

 would suggest the following alterations, which 1 think would improve the arrangement. 



Section 6 might with advantage be suppressed, and its only genus referred to section 5. 

 Sections 7 and 9 would be better united, the anthers being the same in both ; transferring^ 

 however, Cucurbita to section 8, on account of the anther3,which are similar to those of TrichoS' 

 anthesy making the insertion of the filaments a matter of secondary consideration, a generic not 

 a sectional distinction. 



The difference between sections 7 and 8 would then be— not that in the former the anther 

 is lobed and in the other entire, but that in section 7 the back is traversed by an elevated gyrose 

 ridge, on the top of which the long gyrose anther cell is placed, while in section 8 there is no such 

 elevation, the anther cell being sunk into the substance of the connectivum, not elevated on a 

 ridge with a deep furrow between each bend. To this may be added that the oonnectiva in 

 section 8 is elongated ; hence, from the union of the three, a cylinder results, while in the other 

 their union product's a sort of capitulum. 



Bryonia Garcini, doubtfully referred to Bryonia, is a new species of Pylogyne : Bryonia 

 leiosperma, I find, from the examination of dried specimens, is a second species of Mukia, with 

 which it agrees well in habit. 



Notwithstanding these differences of opinion, it is not my intention to alter the conspectus, 

 but print it simply as it reached me, the few additions I have to make, being included within 

 brackets— thus [ ]. Before proceeding further it may be well to explain what is meant by 

 the term tri-adelphous, as applied to this family, which is of such frequent occurrence in the 

 following characters. The normal structure of Cucurbilaceae is to have five stamens, in place 

 of which we usually find only three ; but when these are carefully examined it appears that 

 two of them are twice the size of the third, and are actually made up of two united : each set is 

 then called an adelphi or brotherhood, and the three together tri-adelphous. This structure is 

 readily seen in the Pekunkie ( Cucumia acutangulus, Ainslie) where the anthers do not cohere. 

 In those where they do cohere it is not so clearly seen, as they then require to be separated 

 artificially before it can be made out. 



In some genera the anthers are described as being one or two-celled; these characters 

 require to be used wifh c lutitm, as being generally of very difficult application in practice. 

 Theoretically every anther is two celled, and herein examining a number of instances with 

 particular care, under a high magnifier, I have found most of them actually two-celled, though 

 on less careful examination they appeared only one celled. If such is the case when examined 



■with fresh specimens, how much more liable to error must we be when working with dried ones. 



