CUCURBITACEiE. 305 



2 — 5-celled, the thick and fleshy placenta often filling the cells, or carried back so as to 

 reach the walls of the pericarp, the dissepiments oftjn disappearing during its growth. 

 Stigmas thick, dilated, or fringed. Fruit (a pepo) usually fleshy, with a hard rind, some- 

 times membranous. Seeds flat, often arilled, exalbuminous. Cotyledons foliaceous. 



A very extensive order of tropical and sub-tropical plants, with a few extra- 

 tropical species. They are all succulent herbs, climbing by tendrils, with alter- 

 nate, and palmately-veined or lobed, rough leaves. The general character of the 

 order is acridity and a drastic purgative power, 

 which is found in some part of the plant ; ^ Fi s 149 - 



for, although the fruits of many of them are 

 edible and bland, the roots and leaves are 

 usually active and dangerous. In some cases, 

 the fruit or its pulp is eminently powerful, as in 

 the Elaterium and Colocynth, and there is 

 reason to believe that the edible kinds owe their 

 freedom from acrimony to cultivation, for some 

 of them in a wild state are active and poisonous. 

 The seeds are usually mild and oleaginous, and 

 in one species, the Telfairia pedata, are very 

 large, and are used as an article of food in 

 Africa ; they are said to be very agreeable, and 

 when pressed to yield an abundance of oil, equal 

 in flavour to that of the olive. De Candolle 

 states that none of the seeds of this order are t. pe:iata. 



active or poisonous, but in this he was mistaken, 

 as those of several species of Feuillcea are intensely bitter and violent emetics 

 and cathartics, and those of Anisospermum passiflora and Hypanthera gua- 

 peva are stomachic in small doses, but purge in large ones. A decoction of 

 those of the Watermelon acts as a mild diuretic. 



Momordica. — Linn. 



Petals 5, adnate to the base of the calyx, deciduous. Anthers all cohering. Ovules in 

 a single row in each cell. Stigma 2-lobed. Fruit a capsular, elastically-bursting three- 

 valved pepo. 



The species of this genus are principally natives of India, but one is com- 

 mon to that country and Florida ; though it is doubtful whether it has not been 

 introduced into the latter. Most of the fruits are mild, and are esteemed as 

 vulneraries. 



M. balsamina, Linn. — Leaves smooth, widely-palmate. 



Linn., Sp. PI., 1453 ; Descourtilz, Flor. Med. Antill. iii. 62. 



Common Name. — Balsam Apple. 



Foreign Names. — Pomme de Mervielle, Fr. ; Balsamina, It. 



Description. — Stem climbing, slender, angular, furrowed. Leaves lobed, smooth, of a 

 bright-green colour, petiolated. Flowers axillary, of a whitish-yellow colour. Fruit tu- 

 berculated, oblong, somewhat resembling a cucumber, but more pointed at the ends, of a 

 yellowish-red colour when mature, bursting elastically, and discovering the seeds, which 

 are reddish, crenulated, and marked with waved elevations. 



It is a native of India, but is now naturalized in the West Indies, and ac- 

 cording to Rafinesque, if it is his Neurosperma balsamina, as is supposed by 

 Seringe, is also found in Florida. It is frequently cultivated in gardens, on 

 account of the beauty of its fruit. 



This fruit has long been used in Syria and other Eastern countries as a 

 vulnerary, for which purpose, Hasselquist {Iter. Palest.) informs us, it is cut 



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