GOURD FAMILY. 191 



* * Fruit small and berry-like; flowers very small for this Family. 



+- Fruit smooth; ovules and seeds many, horizontal, on 3 placentae ; filaments sepa 

 rate; anthers straightish ; tendrils simple. 



6. MELOTHEIA. Flowers yellow or greenish, the sterile in small racemes, the fertile 



solitary on a long and slender peduncle. Corolla open bell-shaped, 5-cleft. Anthers 

 slightly united, soon separate. Fertile flower with calyx tube constricted above the 

 ovary. 



+- +- Fruit prickly; ovules and seeds 1-4, large and vertical ; filaments monadelphous ; 

 anthers tortuous ; tendrils 3 forked. 



7. ECHINOCYSTIS. Flowers white, the sterile in compound racemes or panicles, the 



fertile solitary or in small clusters from the same axils. Corolla wheel-shaped, of 6 

 narrow petals united at the base. Anthers more or less united in a mass. Style 

 hardly any ; stigma broad. Fruit oval <v roundish, beset with weak, simple prickles, 

 bursting irregularly at the top when ripe ; the outer part fleshy under the thin, green 

 rind, becoming dry ; the inner part a fibrous network making 2 obloug cells, each 

 divided at the base into two 1-seeded compartments. Seeds large, blackish, hard- 

 coated, erect from the base of the fruit. 



8. SICYOS. Flowers greenish-white, the sterile in corymbs or panicles, the fertile (very 



small) in a little head on a long peduncle, mostly from the same axils. Corolla nearly 

 wheel-shaped, 5-cleft. Anthers short, united in a little head. Style slender ; stigmas 

 3. Ovary tapering into a narrow neck below the rest of the flower, 1-celled, becom- 

 ing a dry and indehiscent, ovate or flattish-spindle-shaped, bur-like fruit, beset with 

 stiff and barbed bristles, filled by the single hanging seed. 



1. LAGENARIA, BOTTLE GOURD. (Latin lagena,& bottle.) () 



L. vulgaris, Ser. BOTTLE, SNAKE, and SUGAR-TROUGH GOURD, CALA- 

 BASH. Cult, from Africa and Asia ; climbing freely, rather clammy- 

 pubescent and musky-scented, with rounded leaves, long-stalked flowers, 

 white petals greenish-veiny, and fruit of very various shape, usually 

 club-shaped, or long and much enlarged at the apex and slightly at base, 

 the hard rind used for vessels, dippers, etc. 



2. CUCURBITA, PUMPKIN, SQUASH, GOURD. (Latin name.) () 

 The very numerous cultivated forms, strikingly different in their fruit, 

 belong to three botanical species. Probably native to America. 



* Stalks and somewhat lobed leaves rough-bristly almost prickly ; flower- 

 stalks obtusely angled, that of the fruit strongly 5-8-ridged and with 

 intervening deep grooves, usually enlarging next the fruit; hollow 

 interior of the fruit traversed by coarse and separate, soft or pulpy 

 threads ; flower tube flaring, the lobes pointed and erect. 



C. Pepo, Linn. PUMPKIN. Cult., as now, along with Indian Corn, by 

 the North American Indians before the coming of the whites. The chief 

 types are: the common FIELD PUMPKIN used for pies and fed to stock ; 

 the BUSH SCALLOP SQUASHES with white or yellow fruit flattened endwise 

 and the vines scarcely running ; the SUMMER CROOK-NECK or WARTY 

 SQUASHES, with white or yellow J-shaped fruits, and vines seldom run- 

 ning ; the GOURDS, small, very hard-shelled fruits of many shapes and 

 colors borne on slender running vines. 



* * Stalks and bright green 5-7 -lobed leaves pubescent with soft hairs ; 

 fruit stalk 5-ridged, prominently enlarged where it joins the fruit, the 

 central pulp less thready ; flower tube much like *, the lobes broader : 

 calyx lobes often leafy. 



C. moschdta, Duchesne. CHINA, CUSHAW, CANADA CROOK-NECK, 

 WINTER CROOK-NECK SQUASHES. Cult, for the edible fruit, which is 



