ADDISONIA ; 47 
(Plate 64) 
MICRAMPELIS LOBATA 
Wild Balsam Apple 
Native of eastern North America 
Family CucuRBITACEAR Gourp Family 
Sicyos lobata Michx. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 217. 1803. 
Momordica echinata Muhl.; Willd. Sp. Pi. oa baie 1805. 
Echinocystis lobata T. & G. Fl. N, Am, 1: 1840. 
Micrampelis lobata Greene, Pittonia 2: oe ne 
A rather tall climbing annual, with nearly smooth angular and 
grooved branching stems. The ee tendrils are often 
slender and cage cprsee spirally twisted. The eg desig 
leaves are three- to seven-lobed, deeply ont at the base 
and roughish a both sith. The acute or acuminate lobes ee 
remotely denticulate. ‘The flowers are small and of two kinds. 
The staminate flowers are very numerous, greenish-white and in 
narrow compound racemes which are often six to eight inches or 
more long; the five or six calyx-lobes are somewhat bristle-like; 
the corolla is deeply five-parted or six-parted into lanceolate acute 
obes; there are three stamens; the anthers are more or less 
coherent. The pistillate flowers are solitary or sometimes two 
together from the same axils; the ovary is two-celled, with tw wo 
it 
in each cavity, are » about three quarters of an inch long and five 
or six SK of an inch broad with a thickish, hard and oeghelied, 
mottled c 
The ead a apple grows naturally along river banks and in 
waste places from New Brunswick to Pennsylvania and Kentucky, 
westward to Saskatchewan and Texas. It is sometimes cultivated 
for arbors. At times the ‘“‘mock apple,” as it is sometimes called, 
may become very troublesome to the gardener, as its growth is 
rapid and its long climbing stems twine about everything within 
reach for support. However, being an annual it may be eradi- 
cated by removing the plants before the fruits mature. 
This plant is quite common in thickets in the north meadow 
at the New York Botanical Garden, where the specimen which 
