golanum, pentandria monogynia. 



549 



longena, the fruit excepted. I have only met with it in gardens, where 

 it is cultivated for the table, and have had it nine years in mine with- 

 out producing any change iti it. The cold season is the proper time 

 for rearing them. 



The plants will exist several years, but are either dug up or neg- 

 lected after the first. 



Stem short, erect, somewhat woody. Branches numerous, spread- 

 ing, two-forked, downy, sometimes prickly ; the whole plant is from 

 two to three feet high. — Leaves alternate, petioled. oblong, scollop- 

 ed, or sub-lobate, downy ; from six to ten inches long ; sometimes 

 the principal nerve is prickly on the underside. — Flowers bowing, 

 large, of a. beautiful, bright bluish-purple, they are of two kinds, 

 abortive with a minute pistil on a small raceme or umbellet ; and a 

 single fertile one upon its own proper petiol, which generally stands 

 immediately below or close by the peduncle of the racemes. — Calyx 

 and petiols sometimes prickly. — Berry pendulous, cylindric, generally 

 a little curved, but never in the least clubbed, smooth ; yellow ; from 

 nine to eighteen inches long, and from one and half to two and a 

 half in diameter, it is generally three-celled. 



9. S. insanum, Willd. sp. i. 1037. 



Perennial, (in a poor soil) armed. Leaves ovate, sinuate, downy? 

 Teduncles from one to four-flowered. Calyx often armed. Fruit 

 from oval to spherical, polished. 



A native of Amboyna, yet I doubt whether Rumphius's Tron- 

 gum hoi tensi can be any other than the real Indian melongend. From 

 the same Island, the seeds of a variety of the above, (insanum) were 

 brought to the botanic garden at Calcutta. Their plants are more 

 spinous, and the fruit perfectly round, white, and smooth, almost the 

 size of a small Crab-apple. This I take to be Rumphius's Trongum 

 agreste, vol. v. p. 240. t. 86. f. 1- and so far as my observation ex- 

 tends it is not cultivated on the continent of India. 



F f 



