100 OF NORTH AMERICA. BIGNONIACEZ. 
SILVA 
pointed flat lobes stigmatic on the inner face. The fruit is ovate or oblong, three or four inches long, 
an inch and a half to two inches broad, umbonate, dark green, minutely rugose-punctulate, and marked 
with four obscure longitudinal ridges corresponding with the margins and midribs of the carpellary 
leaves ; it is raised on the thickened woody disk, and hangs on a stout drooping stalk an inch and a 
half to two inches long, much enlarged at the apex; the shell is a sixteenth of an inch thick, 
ultimately hard and brittle, lustrous on the outer surface, and lined with a thi membranaceous shining 
light brown coat marked with the broad placental scars. The seed is nearly orbicular, slightly com- 
pressed, emarginate at the top and bottom, deeply grooved on both faces, five eighths of an inch long 
and broad and a quarter of an inch thick, with a minute oblong lateral hilum just above the basal 
sinus ; it is covered with two coats, of which the outer is thin, dark reddish brown, rugose, and sepa- 
rable from the thicker pale felt-like inner coat. The cotyledons, which become black in drying, fill the 
seminal cavity, and have two ear-like folds near the base; the radicle is short and is inclosed in the 
lower sinus of the cotyledons. 
Crescentia cucurbitina is found in Florida only on the shores of Bay Biscayne, where it grows 
Just east of the mouth of the Miami River on a rich hummock under the shade of the Live Oak, the 
Red Mulberry, the Gumbo Limbo, the Nectandra, the Pigeon Plum, the Iron Wood, the Palmetto, and 
Hugenia Garberi, and on the banks of Little River. It is a common littoral tree on the Antilles,’ and 
extends to southern Mexico, the Pacific shore of the Isthmus of Panama, and Venezuela.” 
The wood of Crescentia cucurbitina is heavy, hard, very close-grained, and contains many small 
irregularly distributed open ducts and thin hardly distinguishable medullary rays; and is light brown 
or orange-color, with lighter colored sapwood. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 
0.6319, a cubic foot weighing 39.38 pounds. 
In Florida Crescentia cucurbitina was discovered in 1859 by Mr. J. G. Cooper. 
1 Tussac (FU. Antill. iv. 50) believed that the fruit of Crescentia 
cucurbitina contained a deadly poison, but as the other plants of the 
Bignonia family are innocent of poisonous properties the statement 
is probably incorrect (see Seemann, Hooker Jour. Bot. and Kew 
Gard. Misc. ix. 142), especially as the fruit of the Coco de Mono, 
as this tree is called in Venezuela, is freely devoured by monkeys, 
birds, and other animals (Bonplandia, v. 44). 
2 Authors before Linneus appear to have confounded this species 
with the Calabash-tree. Plukenet’s figure (Phyt. t. 171, f. 2), 
quoted by Linnzus under his Crescentia cucurbitina, has the narrow 
leaves and small cuneate seeds of Crescentia Cujete. Plumier’s 
figures (Nov. Am. Pl. Gen. t. 16, and Pl. Am. ed. Burman, t. 
109) represent the seeds of both species, while the uncut fruit is 
evidently that of Crescentia cucurbitina, and Browne (Nat. Hist. 
Jam. 266) considered the small-fruited Crescentia a variety of the 
large-fruited Calabash-tree. 
3 See i. 30. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 
Piate CCXCIII. CRreEscenTiIA CUCURBITINA. 
1. A flowering branch, natural size. 
2. Diagram of a flower. 
3. A flower, the corolla and half of the calyx removed, natu- 
ral size. 
. A corolla, natural size. 
. Vertical section of a corolla, natural size. 
. An anther, front and rear views, enlarged. 
Im OF > 
. Vertical section of an ovary through the median line, 
enlarged. 
8. An ovule, much magnified. 
Puate CCXCIV. CrescentTiA CUCURBITINA. 
. A fruiting branch, natural size. 
. Cross section of a fruit, natural size. 
A seed, natural size. 
. Cross section of a seed, natural size. 
. Vertical section of a seed, natural size. 
. An embryo, natural size, 
- Inner face of a cotyledon, natural size. 
CNA TP & dO 
. A leaf, natural size. 
