84 G. King 1 — r Materials for a Flora of Hie Malayan Peninsula. [No. I, 



narrowly -winged, smooth or slightly tubercled. DC. Prodr. Ill, 303 ; 

 Clarke in Hook. fil. Flor. Brit. Ind. II, 614. Cucumis aegyptiacus, Vesl. 

 in Alp. PI. Aegypt. p. 199, t. 58, 59. Momordica Luffa, Linn. Spec. ed. 1, 

 1009. L. pentandra, Roxb. Flor. Ind. Ill, 712 ; W. & A. Prodr 343; 

 Wall. Cat. 6751 ; Wight Ic. t. 499. L. racemosa, Roxb. 1. c. 715. 

 L. clavata, Roxb. Hort. Beng. 104 ; Flor. Ind. Ill, 714. L. acutangula, 

 W. & A. 1. c., (not of Roxb.). L. cylindrical Roem. Synops. II, 63; 

 Naud. in Ann. Sc. Nat. Ser. 4, XII, p. 119; Knrz in Journ, As. Soc. 

 1877, Pt. II, 100; Cogn. in DC. Mon. Phan. Ill, 456. L. Petola and 

 L. Cattu-picinna, Seringe in DC. I.e. L. Parvala, Wall. Cat. 6758. 

 L. Gosa, hederacea and Scitpatia, Wall. Cat. 6753, 6755, 6757. Bryonia 

 cheirophylla, Wall. Cat. 6715 A. 



Perak ; King's Collector 1020. Distrib. British India and in the 

 Tropics generally ; often cultivated. 



The synonymy of this species occupies more than a page in Cogniaux's excellent 

 Monograph of the Cucurbitaceas in De Candolle's Suites au Prodromus, Vol. III. I have 

 followed Messrs. Cogniaux andC. B. Clarke in reducing here Roxburgh's three species 

 JU pentandra, L. racemosa and L. clavata, but I do so with considerable hesitation. 

 Neither in flower nor leaf do Roxburgh's figures of his L. clavata and L. pentandra 

 much resemble each other, whatever relation either of them may bear to M. Aegyp- 

 tiaca, Miller. The material of the Indian species in the Calcutta Herbarium is very 

 unsatisfactory, and I do not think the last word on them will be said until they have 

 been carefully cultivated side by side, and studied as they grow. 



5. Behincasa, Savi. 



A large climber, softly hairy, tendrils 2- or 3-fid, rarely simple. 

 Leaves cordate, reniform-orbicular, more or less 5-lobed ; petiole without 

 glands. Flowers large, yellow, monoecious, all solitary, without bracts. 

 Male ; calyx-tube campanulate ; lobes 5, leaf-like, serrate ; petals 5, 

 nearly separate, obovate ; stamens 3, inserted near the mouth of the 

 tube ; anthers exserted, free, one 1-celled, two 2-celled, cells sigmoid. 

 Female ; calyx and corolla as in the male ; ovary oblong, densely hairy; 

 style thick, with 3 flexuose stigmas ; ovules numerous, horizontal ; 

 placentns 3. Fruit large, fleshy, oblong, pubescent, indehiscent. Seeds 

 many, oblong, compressed, margined. 



Benincasa hispida, Cogn. in DC. Mon. Phan. Ill, 513. Annual. 

 Leaves on long petioles, reniform-rotund,- with 5-9 small lobes, all 

 toothed, 4-6 in. long and about the same in breadth ; petioles cylindric, 

 longer than the leaves, tendrils usually 3-fid. Male flowers axillary, 

 solitary, peduncled, yellow, 1*5 in. in diam. ; teeth of the calyx ob- 

 tusely pinnatifid or undulate. Female floivers like the male, axillary, 

 solitary, peduncled ; calyx as in the male. Fruit sub-cylindric, obtuse 

 afe-thw ends, smooth, hairy when young but glabrous and with a whitish 



