Melothria.'] CUCURBIT 'AGE AE. 537 



oblong or linear; ovules very many, horizontal, from 3 placentas ; 

 style slender; stigmas 3; pistillode in g flowers 0. Fruit an 

 ovoid or oblong indehiscent berry. Seeds ovoid, compressed, 

 margined, the testa smooth velvety or scorbiculate. 



COCCINIA INDICA, W. & A. 347 ; Wt. 111. t. 105. Cephalandra 

 indica, Nand. ; F. B. I. ii. 621. 



Most plains Districts, especially in the Deccan and Carnatic, 

 on hedges and bushes. 



A pretty climber with large white flowers and oblong scarlet 

 fruit with velvety seeds, the leaves variable, generally 

 5-angled with shallow sinuses, but sometimes even on the 

 same plant (var. palmaia, W. & A.) deeply 5-lobed. The 

 fruit is sometimes eaten. Yern. Hind. Bhimb; Tel. Kai- 

 donda; Tam. Kovay. 



9. Melothria, Linn. 



Slender scandent or prostrate herbs, annual or with a perennial 

 root stock ; tendrils simple, rarely bifid. Leaves usually mem- 

 branous, entire or lobed. Flowers small, monoecious or 

 dioecious, yellow or white; in racemes, corymbs or umbels, 

 sometimes fascicled, rarely solitary; $ solitary fascicled or in 

 umbels. Calyx campanulate ; lobes 5. Corolla deeply 5-partite, 

 the lobes entire. Stamens 3, inserted on the tube, rarely at the 

 base, of the calyx; filaments free; anthers free or slightly 

 cohering, 1 1-celled the others 2-celled, or all 2-celled, the cells 

 straight or curved, the connective sometimes produced; in ? 

 flowers staminodes 3 or 0. Ovary ovoid globose or fusiform, 

 constricted below the flower ; ovules usually many, on 3 placentas ; 

 style short, surrounded by an annular disk ; stigmas 3, rarely 2 ; 

 in (J flowers pistillodes globose or annular. Fruit a globose 

 ovoid or fusiform berry, many- or few-seeded. Seeds ovoid or 

 subglobose, usually compressed and margined, smooth or rugose. 



Flowers usually monoecious, $ in racemes, $ solitary ; anthers 

 subsessile ; leaves deltoid, acute or acuminate, up to 2 in. long, 

 2-25 in. broad, membranous, punctate ; fruit fusiform, rostrate ; 



seeds smooth, truncate at base, not marginate 1. zeylanica. 



Flowers monoecious or dioecious, <$ usually umbellate, $? solitary or 

 umbellate ; filaments long, the connective not produced : 



Seeds small, much compressed; leaves membranous, simple or 



3-5-lobed : 



