CUCURBITACE^E. (GOURD FAMILY.) 195 



5 or usually 2^ stamens (i. e., 1 with a 1-celled and 2 with 2-celled anthers) 

 commonly united l>y their often tortuous anthers, and sometimes also by the 

 filaments. Fruit (pepo) fleshy, or sometimes meinbranaceous. Limb of 

 the calyx and corolla usually more or less combined. Stigmas 2 or 3. 

 Seeds large, usually flat, anatropous, with no albumen. Cotyledons leaf- 

 like. Leaves alternate, palmately lobed or veined. Mostly a tropical 

 or subtropical order ; represented in cultivation by the GOURD (L.\GE- 

 NARIA VULGARIS), PUMPKIN and SQUASH (species of CUCURBITA), MUSK- 

 MELON (CucuMis MELO), CUCUMBER (C. SAxivus), and AYATERMELON 



(ClTRULLUS VULGARIS). 



* Fruit prickly. Seeds few, erect or pendulous. Flowers white. Annual. 

 -i- Ovary 1-celled. Seed solitary, pendulous. 



1. Sicyos. Corolla of the sterile flowers flat and spreading, 5-lobed. Fruit indehiscent. 



*- -i- Ovary 2-3-celled. Seeds few, erect or ascending. 



2. Echinocystis. Corolla of the sterile flowers flat and spreading, 6-parted. Anthers 3. 



Fruit bladdery, 2-celled, 4-seeded, bursting at the top. 



3. Cyclanthera. Corolla 5-parted. Anther 1, annular. Fruit oblique and gibbous. 



* Fruit smooth. Seeds numerous, horizontal, attached to the 3-5 parietal placentae. 



Perennial. 



4. Melothria. Flowers small, greenish ; corolla 5-parted. Slender, climbing. Fruit small. 



5. Cucurbita. Flowers large, yellow, tubular-campanulate. Prostrate. Fruit large. 



1. SICYOS, L. ONE-SEEDED BUR-CUCUMBER. 



Flowers monoecious. Petals 5, united below into a bell-shaped or flattish 

 corolla. Anthers cohering in a mass. Ovary 1-celled, with a single suspended 

 ovule; style slender; stigmas 3. Fruit ovate, dry and iudehiscent, filled by 

 the single seed, covered with barbed prickly bristles which are readily detached. 

 Climbing annuals, with 3-forked tendrils, and small whitish flowers ; the 

 sterile and fertile mostly from the same axils, the former corymbed, the latter 

 in a capitate cluster, long-peduncled. (Greek name for the Cucumber.) 



1. S. angulatus, L. Leaves roundish heart-shaped, 5-angled or lobed, 

 the lobes pointed; plaut clammy-hairy. River-banks, and a weed in damp 

 yards, N. H. and Quebec to Fla., west to Minn., E. Kan., and Tex. July - Sept. 



2. ECHINOCYSTIS, Torr. & Gray. WILD BALSAM-APPLE. 



Flowers moncecious. Petals 6, lanceolate, united at the base into an open 

 spreading corolla. Anthers more or less united. Ovary 2-celled, with 2 erect 

 ovules in each cell ; stigma broad. Fruit fleshy, at length dry, clothed with 

 weak prickles, bursting at the summit, 2-celled, 4-seeded, the inner part fibrous- 

 netted. Seeds large, flat, with a thickish hard and roughened coat. Tall 

 climbing annual, nearly smooth, with 3-forked tendrils, thiu leaves, and very 

 numerous small greenish-white flowers ; the sterile in compound racemes often 

 1 long, the fertile in small clusters or solitary, from the same axils. (Name 

 composed of fx^vos, a hedgehog, and KVCTTIS, a bladder, from the prickly fruit.) 



1 E. lobata, Torr. & Gray. Leaves deeply and sharply 5-lobed; fruit 

 oval (2' long) ; seeds dark-colored. Rich soil along rivers, W. New Eng and 

 Penn. to Minn., E. Kan., and Tex. Also cult, for arbors. July -Oct. 



