472 CUCURBITACEAE (GOURD FAMILY) 



111. ADOXACEAE Fritsch. MOSCHATEL FAMILY 



Glabrous slender herbs, with scaly or tuberiferous rootstocks, basal and 

 opposite ternately compound leaves, and small green flowers in terminal capi- 

 tate clusters. Calyx-tube hemispheric, adnate to the ovary, the limb 2-3- 

 toothed. Corolla rotate, regular, 4-6-lobed. Stamens twice as many as the 

 lobes of the corolla, inserted in pairs on its tube; filaments short; anthers 

 peltate, 1-celled. Ovary 3-5-celled; style 3-5-parted; ovules 1 in each cavity, 

 pendulous. Fruit a small drupe with 3-5 nutlets. 



ADOXA L. 



Characters of the family. 



1. Adoxa Moschatellina L. Sp. PL 367. 1753. Glabrous and smooth: rad- 

 ical leaves once to thrice ternately compound; cauline pair of leaves 3-parted 

 or of 3 obovate and 3-cleft or parted leaflets: flowers small, greenish- white or 

 yellowish, 4 or 5 in a slender-pedunculate glomerule: corolla of the terminal 

 one 4-5-cleft, of the others 5-6-cleft. Subalpine; arctic America to Col- 

 orado and eastward in the northern States. 



112. CUCURBITACEAE B. Juss. GOURD FAMILY 



Herbs, mostly tendril-bearing and climbing, rather succulent, with alter- 

 nate and palmately veined or lobed leaves and no proper stipules, and monoe- 

 cious or dioecious flowers with petals more commonly united into a cup or 

 tube and also blended with the calyx. Sterile flowers with two 2-celled 

 anthers and one 1-celled; the cells usually long and contorted. Fertile flowers 

 with the calyx-tube adnate to a 1-3-celled ovary. 



Flowers solitary, large, yellow; fruit smooth . . . . . .1. Cucurbita. 



Flowers racemose, small, greenish-white; fruit prickly . . . .2. Echinocystis. 



1. CUCURBITA L. PUMPKIN, SQUASH, ETC. 



Mostly prostrate and rooting at the joints. Leaves cordate; tendrils com- 

 pound. Flowers monoecious. Calyx-tube and corolla campanulate. Sterile 

 flowers with the stamens at the base. Fertile flowers with 3 rudimentary 

 stamens. Ovary oblong, with 3 placentae. Fruit fleshy, often with a hard 

 rind. Seed ovate or oblong, flattened. 



1. Cucurbita foetidissima H. B. K. Nov. Gen. 2: 123. 1817. Root fleshy, 

 very large, 1-10 dm. thick, yellow inside: leaves cordate-ovate or triangular, 

 undivided or subsinuate-repand, margin denticulate: fruit globose, yellow, 

 5-8 cm. in diameter. C. perennis. Colorado to Texas and Mexico and west- 

 ward to California. 



2. ECHINOCYSTIS T. & G. WILD BALSAM APPLE 



Tall climbing plants, nearly smooth, with 3-forked tendrils and thin leaves. 

 Flowers monoecious; fertile flowers in small clusters or solitary, from, the 

 same axils as the sterile. Petals united at the base into an open spreading 

 corolla. Fruit fleshy, at length dry. (Micrampelits.) 



1. Echinocystis lobata (Michx.) T. & G. Fl. N. A. 1: 542. 1840. Stem 

 nearly glabrous, angular and grooved, climbing to a height of 4.5-7.5 m., 

 sometimes villous-pubescent at the nodes: leaves thin, roughish on both 



