CUCURBITACEiE. 



641 



coarse teeth on each side; the base three-ribbed, sometimes with an 

 additional pair of basal veins ; the ribs branching into coarse veins 

 and reticulated veinlets. The younger leaves, of recent branches, are 

 only li or 2 inches long; the largest gathered is 9 inches long; and 

 this equally retains on its lower surface the soft and fine, appressed, 

 whitish tomentum, which, however, may be rubbed off; the upper 

 surface glabrous. The male inflorescence consists of small and 

 crowded many-flowered cymes, on peduncles of an inch or two in 

 length : the pedicels scarcely any. Calyx minute, seven-toothed, or 

 sometimes five-toothed. Corolla salver-shaped; the tube half an 

 inchin length; the oblong-linear lobes 3 lines long, varying from 5 

 to 7 in number. Stamens twice as many as the lobes of the corolla, 

 distinct : anthers linear-oblong ; those alternate with the lobes on 

 filaments of about their own length ; those opposite them subsessile. 

 Pistil rudimentary. Female flowers not gathered. But there is a 

 loose fructified ovary, an inch and a half long, ovoid, pointed, and 

 with a narrowed base. 



Ord. cttcubbitace^. 



1. ME LOTH EI A, Linn. 



1. Melothria Fluminensis, Gardn. 

 Melothria Fluminensis, Gardn. in Hook. Lond. Jour. Bot. 2, p. 173. 

 Hab. Brazil ; common around Rio Janeiro. 



2. Melothria Samoensis, Sp. Nov. 



M. glabra; foliis deltoideo-cordatis acuminatis repandis derdiculatis ; 

 floribus dioicis? in axillis solitariis ; pedtmxmlis filiformihns ehngatis; 



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