350 THE CUCUMBER FAMILY. 



Section 2.— UNISEXUAL EXOGENS. 



(TVail.— THE CUCUMBER FAMILY. CucurhitdcecB. 



An important and interesting, though not extensive family, belong- 

 ing chiefly to the tropics, and to India in particular. The species are 

 uniformly herbaceous, with very long, weak, and succulent stems, that 

 climb by means of powerful tendrils when trees or shrubs are near to 

 give them support, but otherwise run along the ground. Leaves 

 large, alternate, petiolate, simple, fan-veined, fan-lobed or palmate, 

 succulent, and rough with tubercles. Flowers pentamerous, regvdar, 

 and unisexual, the petals more or less united, strongly marked with 

 netted veins, usually large and yellow, sometimes green and incon- 

 spicuous, and occasionally fringed. In some species the male and 

 female flowers grow upon different individuals, but in most kinds 

 they are seated upon the same, and in either case are remarkably fine 

 examples of the unisexual structure. The males have five stamens, 

 with large and often beautifully sinuous anthers ; the females have 

 three large lobed and velvety or fringed stigmas. The fruit is succu- 

 lent and three-celled, and in most cases enormous for the size of the 

 plant ; the seeds, immersed in the pulp, are usually broad and flat. 

 In habit, foliage, and tendrils, these handsome plants are strikingly 

 like the passion^owers ; the separation of the stamens and pistils, 

 and the position of the ovary, alone keep them asunder. No plants 

 grow more rapidly, or cover an equal space of ground, in so short a 

 time. In regard to properties and secretions, the Cucurbitacca) are 

 upon the whole to be considered acrimonious ; for although excel- 

 lent fruits are yielded by certain species, as the melon, the cucumber, 

 and the vegetable-marrow, others, such as the colocynth and the 

 elaterium, afford cathartics of great energy ; and there is good reason 

 to believe that even the former owe their freedom from poisonous 

 principles to cultivation. Besides the three first mentioned, there are 

 grown in gardens curious varieties of the pumpkin and the gourd ; 

 an 1 in greenhouses the Trichosanthes anguina, the fruit of which is 

 three or four feet long, b\it not much thicker than the thumb, and 

 called the "snake-gourd." The cucumber and melon belong to the 

 genus Cucumis ; the vegetable-marrow, the pumpkin, and the gourd, 

 to the genus Cucurbila. 



