Famarix.] 12. TAMAR1CACEJE. 



2. T- dioica. Boxb. Jao. Beng. 



A glaucous shrub or small tree with elegant weeping 

 branches, with sheathing leaves. The pink fls. are dioecious 

 in dense panicled spikes 1-2'' long. M. with 5 stamens. 

 Santal Parganahs, banks of the Ganges. Fl. Awj. 



Fam. 13. CUCUR3ITACE E. 



Herbaceous, more rarely shrubby, climbing by means of 

 tendrils. 1 L. alt. simple, lobed, or pedately divided. Venation 

 palmate. Fls. l-sexual monoecious or diocecious. Calyx and 

 corolla superior springing from a common elongated zone of 

 the torus (Hypanthium, Calyx-tube), which is often con- 

 stricted above the ovary. Corolla either poly-or gamo- 

 petalous. St, inserted at various levels on the bypanthium, 

 rarely 5, usually 3, two of which have 2 -celled anthers and 

 the third 1-celled. Anthers often connate, anther-cells 

 straight or usually variously curved or twisted. Ovary 3 

 usually 1-celled, the three parietal placentae often meeting in 

 the ovarian cavity and only separated by mucilaginous lines, 

 or ultimately 3-celled. Ovules anatropous, usually numerous. 

 Style stout with 3-5 stigmas. Fruit a berry with an ultimately- 

 hard outer rind (when it is called a pepo) or entirely 

 succulent, rarely dry. Seeds with a hard testa, exalbnminous, 

 with straight embryo. 



The following species all belong to the tribe CucumerinesB in which 

 the ovules are mostly horizontal, leaves not compound, female flowers 

 usually solitary. 



The ovarian cavity in Cucurbita and others becomes filled with a 

 succulent tissue plentifully supplied with spiral vessels. 



The affinities of Cucurbitaceae are very doubtful. The family is some- 

 times placed near the Campanulaceae. 



1 For the morphology of the tendril see Warming, " Systematisehen 

 Botanik," Sec. German, Ed. P. 367. 



2 In all the genera examined by me, vit ., Trichosanthes, Luffa 

 Momordica, Bryonia, Cucurbita and Cephelandra the ovary is always 

 initially 1-celled. In some cases the apparent septum is an exceedingly 

 small-celled tissue formed subsequently to the meeting of the placentas, in 

 Luffa the septa are the ingrown placentas. 



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