THE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 73 



Seebs. — Numerous^ obloug, compressed, irregularly triangular, 

 obtuse-margined; ^ inch long; according to Dr. Dymock /^ inch 

 long, covered with a blackish shell, and containing a sweet oily 

 kernel. 



Eemares. — With regard to the height of this plant Clarke (in 

 Hooker's Flora of British India, Yol. 11, p. 607) puts it down as 

 "often 30 ft." But I think Roxburgh described it more accurately 

 when he mentioned it as a ''native of forests where it runs over the 

 highest trees." The plant may be seen trailing over hedges and 

 branches of trees over several yards. Roxburgh designates the 

 plant monoecious. Wight and Arnott describe the female flower 

 as ''solitary, in the same axil as the male" or occasionally race- 

 mose. I have not seen the male and female flowers in the same 

 axil yet; nor on the same plant. But I should be afraid of a 

 definite opinion in the face of such weighty authorities : I would 

 leave other observers to note this point. *' Leaves," says Wight , 

 "are glabrous, sometimes slightly scabrous." The whole plant I 

 think is scabi'ous to a more or less degree, except the fruit. Observe 

 Clarke's remark at p. 607; Vol. 11. Hooker's Flora of British India: — 

 "A Trichosanthes collected in Mergin by Griffith has the leaves 

 with short hairs beneath." Variety Trichosanthes Tomentosa is also 

 tomentose beneath [Heyne in Herb Rattle). 



Clarke describes the fruit as marked with ten orange streaks. 

 I cannot help thinkiug that when he wrote this he had the Cucumis 

 Trigonits, var, piihescens or " Takmak" (Marathi) before his mind's 

 eye. I have not seen a fruit of this plant so definitely streaked. 

 Hooker follows this description in the letfcer-press accompanying 

 Tab. 6873 in Vol. XXII of the 3rd series of Curtis' Bot. Magazine, 

 May 1st, 1886. The plate is a good illustration of the male flower- 

 ing plant. My plate, be it observed in passing, is of the female 

 plant with the fruit changing colour in the course of its maturity. 

 The colour is rich, but not uuiforoa ; it changes from day to day from 

 the bright green of its younger days to the golden yellow, orange, 

 or bright vermilion of advanced life, interspersed with all the 

 shades between, often, exhibited on one and the same individual 

 fruit, at one and the same time in its later life. 



Hooker describes the flowers as sweet-scented. I think to some 



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