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white, — delicate, fringy little things, in spikes, 

 with a very agreeable fragrance, especially in the 

 morning when wet with dew, — and there are so 

 many of them that the vine looks as if drifted 

 over with a fall of snow. The plant has tendrils 

 by which it attaches itself to anything with which 

 it comes in contact, consequently strings, lattice- 

 work, or wire netting answer equally well for its 

 support. Its tendency is to go straight up, if 

 whatever support is given encourages it to do so, 

 but if you think advisable to divert it from its 

 upward course all you have to do is to stretch 

 strings in whatever direction you want it to grow, 

 and it will follow them. Its flowers are followed 

 by balloon-shaped fruit, covered with prickly 

 spines — little ball-shaped cucumbers, hence the 

 popular name of the plant. When the seeds 

 ripen, the ball or po<i bursts open, and the black 

 seeds are,5hot out with considerable force, often 

 to a distance of twenty feet or more. In this 

 way the plant soon spreads itself all over the 

 garden, and next spring you will have seedling 

 plants by the hundred. It soon becomes a wild 

 plant, and is often seen growing all along the 

 roadside, and never quite so much " at home " 

 as when it finds a thicket of bushes to clamber 



over. It has one drawback, however, which will 

 12 m 



