102 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. VIII. 
Why the plant is considered synonymous with C. madraspatanus 
it is difficult to understand, especially as Roxburgh describes the latter 
as a distinct plant, having the fruit no bigger than a partridge’s egg ; 
whereas the size of the fruit of C. tragonus, Roxburgh puts down as 
that of a pullet’s egg. Moreover the fruit of C. madraspatanus is 
oval, downy, maculated, without any tendency to be three-sided. 
The fruit of C. trzgonus, besides, is bitter and not edible, whereas that 
of C. madraspatanus is said by Roxburgh to be much used in food by 
the natives and much esteemed. The synonym C. pseudo-colocynth 
appears to be used by Dalzell and Gibson on the authority of Royle, 
The synonym C. pudescens (Willd.), as given by Clarke in Hooker’s 
Flora of British India, is somewhat puzzling. Dalzell and Gibson 
describe it in their Bombay Flora (p. 103) as a distinct species from 
C. trigonus and add that it is cultivated in Sindh under the name of 
“ Chiber”’ It is 1—1% inch long. This is “confusion worse con- 
founded.” The fruit known as Chibid or Chiber, as Englishmen 
would ordinarily pronounce it, is strictly speaking the genuine Cucu- 
mis melo and is a much larger fruit than either Cucwmzs pubescens or 
Cucumis trigonus. It is besides edible uncooked. It is seldom if 
ever cooked. Again Dalzell and Gibson make C. madraspatanus and 
C. turbinatus synonymous with C. pubescens, although Roxburgh 
describes C. turbinatus as a distinct species with a turbinate fruit, 
pyriform in shape, absolutely three-sided, with much larger flowers 
than C. ¢rigonus. Note again another source of confusion, Dr, Lyon 
ealls C. trigonus, Indrayan Bislumbhi, on the authority of the Phar- 
macopeia of India, edited under the supervision of able Indian 
Botanists. But Indrdyan is Citrullus colocynthis. In this I am 
borne out by Dr. Dymock ; and Indrdéyan is a much more powerfully 
drastic purgative, with a larger and much rounder fruit, of the size of 
an ordinary orange or wood-apple. It may be noted, however, that 
C. trigonus is occasionally used as a substitute for Colocynth to produce 
purgation. To pass on to another writer;—Naudin most emphatically 
says that C, trigonus is certainly the species which MM, Boissier and 
Noé have described under the name of C. eriocarpus. Naudin adds 
further that it will be necessary also to unite to this species the one 
described by Baron Sir Ferdinand von Miieller under the name of 
Cucurbita micrantha, an, Australian plant which is probably a species 
