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CUCUMIS COLOCYNTHIS. 
" appears to have been cultivated in Britain in the time of Turner, but 
:. although it flowers in. tolerable perfection by sowing the seeds in a 
hot-bed, it rarely produces any fruit. 
This plant is an annual, flowering from May till August. The 
root is white, and divided into long branches, which strike deep into 
the ground ; the stems trail, like those of the garden cucumber, are 
slender, angular, branched, and beset with rough hairs; the leaves 
stand on long petioles, are of a triangular form, deeply and variously 
sinuated, obtuse, on the upper surface of a fine bright green, under- 
neath whitish and rough ; the flowers are yellow, solitary, and ap- 
pear at the axilla; of the leaves. The calyx of the male flowers are 
bell-shaped, and divided at the brim into five tapering segments; the 
corolla is monopetalous, bell-shaped, and divided at the limb into 
five pointed segments; the filaments are three, two of which are 
bifid, they are all short, and inserted into the calyx; the anthers are 
linear, long, erect, and adhere together on the outer side. The calyx 
and corolla of the female flowers are similar to those of the male ; 
the filaments have no anthers ; the germen is large, inferior, sup- 
porting a short cylindrical style, finished with three thick, gibbous, 
bifid stigmas, which are bent outwardly ; the fruit is a round berry, 
or pepo, the size of an orange, of a yellow colour, smooth when 
ripe, and divided into three cells, which abound with pulp of a white 
colour, enveloping many compressed ovate seeds. 
The fruit of the colocynth is imported into this country in its dry 
state from Turkey ; when ripe and yellow, it is pulled and dried in 
a stove. The fruit of a middling size is most esteemed ; those that 
are large, and contain dark coloured or black seeds, are not good. 
Sensible and Chemical Properties, &c. Dried colocynth 
is inodorous, but has an extremely bitter nauseous taste. The pulp 
(which is the part used medicinally) feels somewhat mucilaginous 
when chewed ; and when long boiled, the decoction becomes gela- 
tinous, so as scarcely to pass the strainer; it is of a deep golden 
yellow colour : the mucilage is soluble in cold water. Alcohol and 
all the acids coagulate the solution, which is precipitated by solutions 
of superacetate of lead, and nitrate of silver. Solution of ammonia 
dissolves the mucilage. The decoction, or infusion, of the pulp turns 
of a deep olive brown colour by the addition of sulphate of iron ; 
sulphate of potass renders it greenish, and precipitates it. Both water 
and alcohol extract the virtues of colocynth, but the former more 
readily than the latter. Ether digested on the pulp deposits, when 
evaporated upon the surface of water, a white opaque bitter resin, 
and some extractive ; from which the water acquires the bitter taste 
