115 



N. Ord. CUCUBBITACE^E. 

 Tribe Cucumerinete. 



Genus EcbaUium,* Rich. B. & H., Gen., i, p. 826. The 

 following is the only species. 



115. EcbaUium Elaterium,t A. Rich., Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat., 



vi,p. 19 (1825). 



Squirting Cucumber. Wild Cucumber. 



Syn. Momordica Elaterium, Linn. Ecbalium agreste, Reichenb. Ec- 

 ballium officinale, N. & E. Elaterium cordifolium, Moench. 



Figures. Woodville, t. 72; Hayne, viii, t. 45; Steph. & Ch., i, t. 34; 

 Nees, t. 272; Bot. Mag., t. 1914; Flor. Grseca, t. 939; Reich., Ic. PI. 

 Germ., xix, t. 1619. 



Description. A small perennial herb, with a fleshy, tapering, 

 white root. Stems prostrate or trailing, ^ to 3 feet long, branched, 

 thick, succulent and translucent, cylindrical, slightly furrowed, set 

 with scattered short, thick, stiff, projecting hairs or bristles. 

 Leaves alternate, without stipules or tendrils, on very long, thick, 

 succulent, tapering petioles, hispid with bristles like those of the 

 stem ; blade 3 5 inches long, bluntly triangular in outline, deeply 

 cordate with square or rounded auricles at the base, blunt at the 

 apex, coarsely and irregularly toothed or lobed and undulated at 

 the margin, pale green and with few scattered tubercled hairs 

 above, more or less white with dense woolly hairs beneath. 

 Flowers unisexual, monoecious, rather large, stalked, the male 

 flowers usually several together on a common axillary peduncle, 

 the female usually solitary, occasionally accompanying the male 

 flowers. Calyx deeply divided into 5 narrow, acute segments, 

 hispid with long white bristly hairs, in the male flowers with a 

 very short tube, in the female superior, the tube fused with the 

 ovary. Corolla gamopetalous, with a very short tube and 5 widely 



* Name from tK/Sa'XXw, to throw out, from the action of the fruit. Richard 

 spells it Ecbalium, but the above must be more correct. 



f From iXuTripwv, purging, the name of the drug in classical times. 



