526 FLORA OF MADRAS. [Cucurbitaceae. 



Family LXXIII. CUCURBITACEAE. 



Herbs or undershrubs, rarely shrubs, prostrate or climbing by 

 means of tendrils spirally twisted. Leaves alternate, petioled r 

 simple or lobed or palmately or pedately divided, often cordate 

 at .base ; stipules usually 0. Flowers regular, monoecious or 

 dioecious, yellow or white, solitary paniculate or racemose. 

 Calyx-tube usually adnate to the ovary ; limb rotate campanulate 

 or tubular, lobes 5, rarely 3-6, imbricate. Petals as many as the 

 calyx-lobes, free or gamopetalous, sometimes lobed or fimbriate, 

 valvate or involute in bud. Stamens inserted at the mouth, near 

 the middle or at the base of the calyx-tube, usually 3 ; anthers 

 free or connate, usually 1 1 -celled, the others 2-celled, the cells 

 straight, flexuose or conduplicate, the connective sometimes 

 produced ; in $ flowers staminodes often present. Ovary inferior, 

 usually of 3 connate carpels ; ovules usually many, horizontal, 

 rarely few and erect or pendulous ; placentas usually 3, vertical, 

 parietal or partly intruded, and so spuriously 3-celled; style 1 

 with 3 stigmas, rarely styles 2-4 ; in <J flowers pistillodes often 

 present. Fruit usually a fleshy berry, indehiscent or dehiscing 

 by valves or by a circumscissile lid. Seeds usually many, in pulp 

 or fibre, often compressed ; outer testa often corrugate and 

 margined, inner membranous ; albumen ; cotyledons fleshy or 

 foliaceous, radicle short. 



Ovules horizontal : 



Anther-cells flexuose or conduplicate : 



Corolla rotate or campanulate, 5-partite to the base : 



Petals fimbriate on the margins 1. Trichosanthes, 



Petals entire : 



Calyx-tube of $ elongate ; anthers cohering, included : 

 Pistillodes 1-3, subulate ; tendrils simple ; fruit small, 

 acute at both ends ; slender climbers ...2. Gymnopetalum. 

 Pistillodes glandular or ; tendrils bifid ; fruit very large, 



variously shaped; stout* climber Lagenaria. 



Calyx-tube of $ short ; anthers free or slightly cohering, 

 usually exsert : 



Stamens free, inserted on the mouth of the calyx ; $ flowers 

 ' usually with a large bract; tendrils simple... 3. Momordica* 

 Stamens free, inserted on the tube of the calyx : 



