274 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Michigan, south to North CaroHna. Native of Etirope, and estabUshed 

 as a weed in many locahties. 



Gourd Family 



C n c 11 r b i t a c e a e 

 One-seeded Bur Cucumber; Star Cucumber 



Sicyos augiihitHS Linnaeus 



PlatL- .'10 



An annual, succulent, hcrbaceotis vine, climbing by means of branched 

 tendrils; stem angled, clammy-hairy, often climbing or trailing a distance 

 of 15 to 25 feet. Leaves broad, nearly orbicidar, of thin texture, but 

 roughened on both surfaces, heart-shaped at the base and five-angled or 

 five-lobed, the lobes sharp pointed, but the sinuses between the lobes 

 usually not very deep. Petioles stout, i to 4 inches long. Flowers small, 

 greenish white, of two kinds, staminate and pistillate. The staminate 

 flowers arranged in loose racemes on very long stalks, with a five-toothed 

 cup-shaped calyx tube, a five-parted rotate corolla and three stamens with 

 their filaments united to form a short column, their anthers coherent. 

 The pistillate or fertile flowers are arranged several together in capitate 

 ckisters, on short stalks, also with a five-parted calyx and corolla. Fruit 

 a one-seeded, indehiscent btu-like pod, dry when mature, armed with slender^ 

 rough spines, sessile in clusters of three to ten, each " cucumber " about 

 one-half of an inch long. 



In moist soil, chiefly along streams and rivers or in thickets and low 

 woods, Quebec to Ontario and South Dakota, south to Florida, Texas and 

 Kansas. Flowering from June to Septemlier. 



Wild Balsam Apple; Wild Cucumber 



Micrainpclis lobata (Michaux) Greene 



Plate 217 and Figure XXXV 



An herbaceous, annual vine, climbing and twining, several feet long, 

 sometimes confused with the One-seeded Bur Cucumber. Stems angular 

 and grooved, nearlv glabrous and not clammy-hairy, but sometimes hairy at 



