Bryonia. | _ KXXIX. CUCURBITACE A. 157 
XXIX. CUCURBITACEA. THE GOURD FAMILY. 
Herbs with long stems, prostrate, or climbing by means of 
axillary tendrils; alternate, palmately-veined leaves; and 
unisexual flowers, either solitary or in bunches or racemes in 
the axils of the leaves. Calyx 5-toothed. Petals united in a 
single 5-lobed corolla or rarely distinct, inserted in the margin 
of the calyx. Stamens in the male flowers inserted on the 
calyx or corolla; anthers curved, forming a wavy line on the 
short, thick filaments, which are sometimes free, but often so 
combined as that the number of stamens has been differently 
described as 5 or 3 only, or sometimes all the filaments form 
but one mass. Ovary in the females inferior, divided into 3 or 
5 cells. Stigmas from 3 to 5, 2-cleft, either sessile or supported 
on a style. Fruit succulent or juicy, either indehiscent or 
bursting open elastically when ripe. 
A considerable Order, chiefly tropical, and more especially African, with 
but very few species extending into Europe or northern Asia. It is very 
easily recognised, as well by its foliage and tendrils as by the structure of 
the flowers. The only Order at all allied to it is that of the Passifloracece 
or Passion-flowers, almost all of them American, and chiefly tropical, but 
of which some species are well known among our greenhouse or stove 
plants. To the Cucurbitacee belong the Cucumbers, Melons, Watermelons, 
Gourds, Pumpkins, Vegetable Marrows, &c., of our gardens, most of them 
of very ancient cultivation, but unknown in a wild state. 
I. BRYONIA. BRYONY. 
Calyx with 5 small teeth. Corolla 5-lobed. Stamens combined into 
3, of which 2 are double and 1 single. Style 3-lobed, with capitate or 
2-lobed stigmas, Fruit a globular berry. 
1. B. dioica, Jacq. (fig. 358). Common B.—Rootstock perennial, 
thick and tuberous, sometimes branched ; the annual stems climbing toa — 
great length, and, as well as the whole plant, rough with minute hairs, 
containing an acrid juice, and emitting asickening smell indrying. Ten- 
drils simple or branched, and spirally twisted. Leaves more or less deeply 
divided into 5 or 7 broad angular, and coarsely toothed lobes, of which the 
middle one is the longest. Flowers dicecious, the males several together 
in stalked racemes, of a pale yellow; the corolla broadly campanulate, 
about half an inch diameter ; the females much smaller, generally 2 to- 
gether, nearly rotate, with aglobular ovary. Berries red or orange, about 
4 lines in diameter, containing several flat, nearly orbicular seeds. 
Common in hedges and thickets, in central and southern Europe to the 
Caucasus. Occurs in most English counties, and common in some, but 
rare in the north and in Wales, and does not extend into Scotland or 
Ireland. Fl. summer. It must not be confounded with the black Bryony, 
Tamus communis, a very different plant, with entire, shining leaves. 
