24 Materials for a Flora of the Malayan Peninsula. 



6 or 7, short, glabrous, erect. Fruit unknown. Clarke in Flor. Br. Ind, 

 II, 598. Pierrea didyojieura, Haiice,in Trimen's Journ. Bot. for 1877, 339. 

 Malacca ; Griffith. Peiiak ; Scortechini. Singapore ; Ridley 6527. 

 Gulf of Siam ; Hance. Distkil. Tenasserim. 



An examination of flowers of his Pierrea dictyoneura, sent to me by the late 

 Dr. Hance, proves that that plant is a species of Ho7nalium with larger flowers and 

 more stamens than usual. 



Order LIT. CUCURBITACE^. 

 Climbing herbs or shrubs ; tendrils solitary, lateral, spiral, simple 

 or divided. Leaves alternate, petioled, frequently cordate, simple, lobed 

 or pedately divided. Floivers monoecious or dioecious, yellow or white, 

 racemed and solitary, less commonly panicled. Galyx-tiibe wholly 

 adnate to the ovary ; limb rotate, campanulate, or tubular ; lobes 5 

 (rarely 3), imbricate. Petals 5, inserted on the calyx-limb, united in a 

 tube or nearly or quite free, sometimes fimbriated at the margin, valvate 

 or involute in the bud. Stamens inserted at the mouth or about the 

 middle or at the base of the calyx-tube, usually 3 (sometimes 5 or 2), 

 anthers free or united into a tube, one usually 1-celled and the other 

 two 2-celled, cells straight or flexuose or conduplicate, the connective 

 sometimes crested or produced. Ovary inferior, usually 3-carpellary ; 

 style 1 with 3 stigmas, more rarely styles 2-3-4 ; placentas usually 3, 

 vertical, in double lines, the edges of the carpellary leaves being often 

 turned in so far that the ovary (even before fertilization) is spuriously 

 3-celled ; ovules usually many, horizontal, rarely pendulous, sometimes 

 few and pendulous from near the top of the ovary. Fruit generally 

 berried or fleshy, indehiscent or dehiscing by valves or by a circuni- 

 scissile lid, often l-celled, the seeds being often packed in pulp or fibre. 

 Seeds usually many, often compressed, horizontal, pendulous, fre- 

 quently corrugated or sub-spinose on the margins, albumen 0. Distkib. 

 Species 600, in the warmer parts of the whole globe especially in the 

 tropics. 



Tribe I. Cucumerine^. Ovules horizontal ; female flowers 

 solitary, never panicled ; stamens 3, rarely 2 or 5, free 

 or variously connate ; cells of anthers straight, curved or 

 flexnous ; ovary bearing 3 (rarely 2 or 5) placentas :— 

 Anther-cells conduplicate or sigmoid; corolla rotate or 

 campanulate, divided to the base :— 

 Petals cirrhiferous or fimbriate : — 



Seeds only 6, perfect, very large ... ... 1. Hodgsonia. 



Seeds numerous, testa not fibrous ... ... 2, Trichosanthes. 



Petals entire : — 



Calyx-tube of male flower elongate ; the anthers in- 

 cluded in the tube, cohering, sessile or subsessile, 

 tendrils usually simple ... ... ... 3. Gymnopetalum. 



368 



