158 GOURD FAMILT. 



t- leaves palmately lohed: flovoer widdy spreading. 

 P. gracilis. Slender herb, with roundish and slightljy^ 3-lobed otherwise 

 entire leaves, and whitish merely 5-cleft flower only 1' In diameter, destitute of 

 true petals. Recently introduced, remarkable for the quick movement of its 

 tendrils. ® 



P. csertllea, the Common or Blue Passion-flower ; with leaves very 

 deeply cleft or parted into 5 or 7 lance-oblona entire divisions, pale ; and flower 

 almost white, except the purple centre and blue crown banded with whitish in 

 the middle. 



P. ^dulis, Granadilla ; the purplish edible fruit as large as a goose-egg : 

 leaves dark green and glossy, deeply cleft into 3 ovate pointed lobes beset with 

 ; callous teeth ; bracts under the flower also toothed ; the crown crisped, 2' across, 

 ' whitish with a blue or violet base, as long as the white petals. 



1- 1- Leaves entire, feather-veined : flower bell-shaped. 

 P. quadrangul&,ris, Large Granadilla. Very large, with the branches 

 l-sided and the angles wing-margined ; leaves 4' - 8' long, ovate or oval, or 

 slightly heart-shaped, bright green, with 2-4 pairs of glands on the petiole; 

 flower about 3' long, fragrant, crimson-purple and the violet or blue crown 

 variegated with white. Fruit rarely formed here, edible, 6' long. 



52. CUCURBITACEiE, GOURD FAMILY. 



Mostly tendril-bearing herb.*, with succulent but not fleshy herb- 

 age, watery juice, alternate palmately ribbed and mostly lobed or 

 angled leaves, monoecious or sometimes dioBcious flowers ; the calyx 

 coherent with the ovary, corolla more commonly monopetalous, 

 and stamens usually 3, of which one has a 1-celled, the others 

 2-celled anthers; but the anthers are commonly tortuous and often 

 all combined in a head, and the filaments sometimes all united in 

 a tube or column. Fruit usually fleshy. Embryo large, filling the 

 seed, straight, mostly with flat or leaf-like cotyledons. — Besides 

 those here described, there are occasionally cultivated for curiosity 

 the following annuals : — 



Mom6rdica Elaterium or Ecbalium agrbste, the Squirt- 

 ing Cucumber, a homely hairy herb without tendrils, and pro- 

 ducing an oblong hairy pulpy fruit (of violently purgative qualities), 

 which when ripe bursts suddenly at the touch, and discharges the 

 contents wiih violence (whence the name Ecbalium). 



Trichosanthes colubrina, Snake-Cucumber or Vege- 

 table Serpent, a tall climber with the staminate flowers orna- 

 mental, the lobes of the white corolla being cut into a lace-like 

 fringe of long and very delicate capillary lobes (whence the name 

 ,of the genus), and the fruit very like a snake, 3 or 4 feet long, 

 green and striped, turning red when ripe. 



§ 1. Flowers large or middle-sized, on separate simple pedunclesin the axils: anSiera 

 with long and narrow cells, bent up and down or contorted: ovules and seeds 

 many, horizontal, on mostly 3 simple nr double placentae: fruit {of the sort 

 called a pepo) large, jlethy or pulpy with a harder rind. 

 * Both kinds of flowers solitary in the axils. 

 1. LAGENARIA. Tendrils 2-forked. Flowers musk-soented, with a funnel-form 

 or bell-shaped calyx-tube, and 5 obcordate or obovate and mucronate white 

 petals ; the sterile on a long, the fertile on a shorter peduncle. Anthers lightly 

 cohering with each other. Stigmas 3, each 2-lobed. Fruit with a hard or 

 woody rind and soft flesh. Seeds margined. Petiole bearing a pair of glands 

 at the apex. 



