BIGNONIACE^E 



797 



1. Crescentia cucurbitina, L. Black Calabash Tree. 



Leaves crowded near the ends of the branches, obovate-oblong or ovate-oblong, 

 contracted into short broad points or rarely rounded or emarginate at the apex,' 

 gradually narrowed at the base, and entire, with cartilaginous slightly revolute mar- 

 gins, coriaceous, dark green and lustrous above, paler and yellow-green below, 6'-8' 

 long and l|'-4' wide, with broad stout midribs deeply impressed on the upper side, 



conspicuous primary veins arcuate and united near the margins, and reticulate vein- 

 lets, unfolding in the spring and persistent until their second year; their petioles 

 thick, covered with glands, and about \' long. Flowers appearing in April and May 

 and also in the autumn, bad-smelling, on thick drooping peduncles solitary in the 

 axils of the upper leaves, l'-2' long, furnished below the middle with 2 minute rigid 

 acute bractlets and enlarged at the apex into the thick oblique receptacles; calyx 

 light green and slightly glandular at the base, splitting nearly to the bottom into 

 2 ovate pointed lobes nearly as long as the tube of the corolla; corolla thick and 

 leathery, dull purple or creamy white, and marked by narrow purple bands on the 

 lower side, and 2' long, with a narrow tube creamy white within and slightly con- 

 tracted above the base, the limb erosely cut on the margins and obscurely 2-lipped, 

 the upper lip slightly divided into 2 reflexed lobes, the lower obscurely 3-lobed; 

 stamens inserted near the middle of the tube of the corolla, those of the anterior 

 pair below the others and above the linear staminodium; ovary obliquely conical. 

 Fruit ovate or oblong, 3'^' long, l^'-2' wide, umbonate, dark green, minutely rugose- 

 punctulate, and marked with 4 obscure longitudinal ridges corresponding with the 

 margins and midribs of the carpellary leaves, raised on the thickened woody disk and 

 pendent on a stout drooping stalk l'-2' long and much enlarged at the apex; shell 

 ^' thick, ultimately hard and brittle, lustrous on the outer surface and lined with a 

 thin membranaceous shining light brown coat marked by the broad placental scars; 

 seeds $' long and broad and \' thick, with a minute lateral hilum just above the 

 basal sinus; seed-coat of 2 layers, the outer thin, dark reddish brown, rugose, and 

 separable from the thick pale felt-like inner layer; cotyledons with 2 ear-like folds 

 near the base, inclosing the radicle in their lower sinus. 



A tree, in Florida 18-20 high, with a trunk 4'-5' in diameter, long slender droop- 

 ing branches covered with wart-like excrescences, and stout slightly angled branch- 



