384 VARIOUS PLANT GROUPS 
Most of the gourd family have the andrcecium so curiously 
developed as to be quite variously understood by different 
botanists. According to the view now most generally adopted 
there are typically five stamens. In some members of the 
family (not among the above examples), all five stamens are 
free, but usually four of them coalesce more or less completely 
in pairs, forming, as we may say, two double stamens leaving 
an odd one distinct. In such cases the flowers appear to 
have but three stamens. Along with this coalescence there 
goes an extraordinary elongation and bending! of the pol- 
len-sacs as shown in Fig. 80 III. In some genera, as for 
example squashes, etc. (Cucurbita), there is a complete 
coalescence of all the anthers, which are then said to be 
syngenesious.? 
In this genus and most other members of the family, three, 
much thickened, wedge-shaped, parietal placentze almost 
completely fill the ovary, and bear on their recurved margins 
an indefinite number of ovules. The seeds as they ripen are 
imbedded in a soft pulp formed of the placentze. Around 
this pulp, in the mature fruit, is a hard rind composed of the 
ripened ovary wall and the adhering torus. Such a fruit is 
called a pepo.’ 
The family is made up mostly of herbaceous vines with wa- 
tery juice; flowers solitary or loosely clustered, imperfect, reg- 
ular, gamopetalous or choripetalous; stamens five, often appear- 
ing as three through coalescence, and sometimes syngenesious, 
the pollen-sacs often elongated and bent; ovary inferior with 
three parietal placente, fruit usually a pepo. 
138. The bellflower family (Campanulacez). Examples: 
Indian tobacco (Figs. 188 I, II, page 201) and bellflower 
(Fig. 299 II, page 381). 
The formulas of Campanula, Lobelia, and Campanulacee are 
given on pages 418-421. 
The corolla of Indian tobacco and other species of its genus 
1 This bending i is expressed in the formulas by FA Y 
? Syn’’gen-e’sious < Gr. syn, together; genesis, generation. Such 
coalescence is symbolized by a small parenthesis placed after the stamen 
number and above. 
3 Pe’po < L. pepo, a pumpkin. TC!j <. 
