128 The Flowering Plants of Western India. 



flowers few, larger than the male, ovary hairy, fruit at first 

 slightly 3-lobed, and striped in light and dark green, but when 

 ripe, smooth, level, and yellow. Jangli Kakri, Kdrit, Kdtvel. 



Common throughout India. The pulp is bitter. H. includes under 

 this D.'s C. pubescens chibar, takmak, common in the Deccan, Cutch 

 and Sind : the fruit is covered with small bristles. 



C. satious is the cultivated cucumber, Kaltri, Khira. 

 " The prickly and green-coated gourd 

 So grateful to the palate." Cowper. 



C. melo is the melon Kharbuz, chibur, of which there are many 

 varieties, and which H. says is perhaps the cultivated form of C. 

 trigonus. Dr. Lansdell and Vambery speak of the melons of Central 

 Asia, and especially of Khiva, as probably the best in the world, 

 which indeed is pretty much what Marco Polo said. The melon was 

 brought from Jamaica and cultivated in England, certainly since 

 1570 : the cucumber was introduced in 1573. Don. 



5. ClTRULLUS. 



C. colocynthus. A large rough creeper, with leaves so deeply 

 gashed as to be almost pinnatind, male and female flowers 

 alike, middle-sized, yellow, long -stalked, fruit round, smooth, 

 size of an orange, yellow variegated with green. Indrayan, 

 indrafal, Kadu kakri. 



Throughout India, cultivated and also very often apparently wild 

 (H.). It is one of the characteristic plants of the desert region, ex- 

 tending from Arabia and Palestine across the whole of N. Africa 

 (Hooker in ' Marocco'). The old commentators considered that the 

 ' wild vine ' of 2 Kings iv. 39 was the Colocynth (from Kolokunthe, 

 the Greek name). The pulp is called by English chemists, ' bitter 

 apple ' : and the fruit is mentioned by old writers as a typical 

 bitter " That which is unrighteous is as hateful to the child of God 

 as colocynth to the taste." Bishop J. Taylor. 



C. vulgaris is the water melon, tarbuz, Kalingar. The mounds of 

 them piled up inside the town gates and elsewhere in Italy in the 

 late summer, give one some idea of the easiness of their growth. It 

 is by some considered to be indigenous in India. " A traveller in the 

 East," says Kitto, " who recollects the intense gratitude which the 

 gift of a slice of melon inspired while journeying over the hot and 

 dry plains, will readily comprehend the regret with which the 

 Hebrews in the Arabian desert looked back on the melons of Egypt," 

 (Num. xi. 5.) 



A variety of C. vulgaris is the dilpasand. 



6. CEPHELANDRA. 



C. Indica (Coccinea I. D.). A smooth climber, leaves 5- 

 angled, or more or less deeply lobed, sometimes fleshy, flowers 

 large, petioles and peduncles short and thick, fruit 2 or 3 inches 



