14 



(Travels, I., pag\ 128), a powerful emetic and purgative. 

 This plant, the Bryonia Africana of former botanists, 

 grows upon the slopes of Table Mountain, amongst bushes ; 

 also in the Eastern districts, near Port Elizabeth, etc., and 

 flowers in the month of October. 



CITRULLUS. ScHR. 



( Cucurhitacece.^ 

 XVI. — 10. MONOECIA MONADELPHIA. LIN. SYST. 



32. Citrullus amarus. Schrad. Stem angular, fur- 

 rowed, hispid, decumbent. Leaves alternate, stalked ; 

 the upper ones 3-parted ; middle segment sinuated, 

 pinnatifid ; lateral ones 2 fid ; lobes blunt, scabrid, 

 pimpled ; radical leaves 5 -parted. Tendrils axillary. 

 Flowers dioecious. Fruit glabrous, elliptico-globose. 



This annual plant resembles a water-melon in foliage. 

 Its fruit, a round pepo of the size of a child's head, is 

 filled with a spongy pulp. By the farmer, this fruit, 

 which is bitter and loathsome, is called Bitter-appel or 

 Wild Water-melon,* and is common in the sands of the 

 Cape Downs, near Tygerberg and Rietvalley, and in 

 similar localities. The pulp of the pepo, like that of 

 Colocynth, is a very strong, drastic purgative, and serves 

 the same purpose, and is used as a cathartic in dropsy 

 and other complaints. An extract can easily be prepared 

 from it, equal in its effects to the extract of Colocynth. 



PHAPvNACEUM. Lin. 



(ParonychiacecB, ) 

 V. 3. PENTANDRIA TRIGYNIA. LIN. SYST. 



33. Pharnaceum lineare. Thbg. Suffruticose. Root 

 fibrous, stemless. Branches radical, diiFused, smooth^ 

 repeatedly forked. Leaves sessile, whorled, linear, 

 unequal, entire, patent, blunt. Stipules scarious, torn. 



* Thunberg (Trav. II., p. 171) relates, that at the Cape the Colocynth- 

 fruit IS eaten, when pickled, both by the natives and colonists, although it 

 IS verv bitter.— This is a mistake : the fruit alluded to by that author, is 

 tliat ot Citrullus caffer. Schrad., called by the colonists, Kaffir -water meloen. 



