CLASSIFICATION OF ANGIOSPERMS. 387 



cm. in diameter, smooth, greenish and mottled (Fig. 254). The 

 fruit deprived of the epicarp (Fig. 254) is official (p. 583). 



Cucurbita Pepo (pumpkin-vine) is an extensively trailing 

 hispid vine, with large, nearly entire, cordate leaves with long 

 petioles. The tendrils are branching. The flowers are large, 

 deep yellow and monoecious ; the staminate ones being in groups, 

 and the pistillate single. The fruit is a large, yellowish berry, 

 sometimes weighing from 10 to 72 K. The seeds are numerous 

 and are official as Pepo (p. 429). 



Ecballium Elaterium (Squirting cucumber) is a bristly-hairy, 

 trailing perennial herb with thick, rough-hair}', cordate, some- 

 what undulate leaves. The flowers are yellow, monoecious. The 

 fruit is ellipsoidal, about 4 cm. long, rough-hairy or prickly, pend- 

 ulous, and at maturity separates from the stalk, when the seeds 

 are discharged upward through a basal pore. The plant is indigr 

 enous to the European countries bordering the Mediterranean, 

 the Caucasus region. Northern Africa and the Azores. The juice 

 of the fruit yields the drug Elaterium, which is official in the 

 British Pharmacopceia. Elaterium contains about 44 per cent, 

 of a neutral principle, elaterin, which latter is official in the 

 U. S. Pharmacopoeia. Elaterium also contains a bitter yellow 

 glucoside, prophetin; a bitter, acrid, resin-like substance, ecbal- 

 lin (elateric acid) ; a bitter principle, elaterid, precipitable by 

 tannin ; and a principle which is not bitter, hydro-elaterin. The 

 juice of the other parts of the plant apparently contains the same 

 principles. 



Bryonia or bryony is the dried root of Bryonia alba (White 

 bryony), a climbing herb indigenous 'to Southern Sweden, East- 

 ern and Central Europe, including Southern Russia, and North- 

 ern Persia (Fig. 66). Bryony occurs in the market in nearly 

 circular disks, which are 2 to ro' cm. in diameter, 5 to 16 mm. 

 thick, white or yellowish-white, with concentric zones "of collateral 

 fibrovascular bundles ; short, mealy fracture ; slight odor," and 

 bitter, nauseous taste. The drug contains two bitter glucosides,. 

 bryonin and bryonidin; two resinous principles and considerable 

 starch. Bryonia dioica (Red bryony) also has medicinal prop- 

 erties and IS a source of the drug. B. dioica has red berries, while 

 the fruit of B. alba is black. The latter plant is sometimes known 



