CLXXXIII.— THE WHITE BRYONY. 
Bryonia dioica Jacquin. 
S O far as the affinities of the Families of Flowering Plants can be represented by 
a regular sequence in a linear series, as it were, the arrangement of Dr. Engler 
has been here followed in the main. At this point, however, it seems better to the 
present writer to depart from it. Dr. Engler considers the Family Cucurbitacece , the 
Cucumber Family, of which the White Bryony [Bryonia dioica Jacquin) is the only 
British representative, to be nearly akin to the Campanulacece, and he accordingly 
places it in his highest and concluding Order, the Campanulatce. Bentham and 
Hooker, Baillon, Eichler, and Warming, on the other hand, place it here, in the 
neighbourhood of the Myrtiflorce and Umbelliflorce, in an Order Passiflorales. This too is 
the place assigned to it by Messrs. Britten and Rendle in the table of the “ Sequence 
of Orders according to recent views of affinity ” which they appended to their “ List 
of British Seed-Plants and Ferns ” (1907) ; and, on this point, these authorities will 
be here followed. 
The Order Passiflorales, named, of course, from the tropical or sub-tropical 
Passion-flowers [Passifloracece), may be characterised as largely herbaceous, often 
climbing by means of tendrils, with flowers usually polysymmetric, perfect, or 
unisexual, and a syncarpous ovary, usually one-chambered with three or more 
parietal placentas. It includes the urticating American Family Loasacece and, perhaps, 
also the Begoniacece, belonging chiefly to Tropical America, as well as the Passifloracece, 
which are well represented in that continent, and the Cucurbitacece. 
Th is last-mentioned Family, though very widely distributed, is most abundant 
in tropical regions and is absent in the coldest zones. It comprises some eighty- 
seven genera and 650 species, mostly juicy, rapidly-growing, herbaceous plants, 
climbing by means of tendrils, with generally unisexual, pentamerous flowers having 
coherent sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels, and a gourd or pepo — inferior and horny 
externally when ripe — as fruit. 
There has been much discussion as to the morphological nature of the tendrils 
of the Cucurbitacece, these climbing organs, which are sensitive to contact, mainly on 
the under surface of their hooked extremities, having been considered by various 
authors either as “ roots, stems, leaves, stipules, shoots, flower-stalks, or organs sui 
generis.” One of the most recent interpretations is that the non-sensitive base of 
each tendril is a branch, the sensitive apical portion a leaf : the absence of any 
articulation between them, and the apparent necessity of then considering the leaf 
as a terminal one, would seem to militate against this view. The unbranched 
character of these tendrils and the non-occurrence of flowers upon them tend 
to show that, unlike those of the Grape-vine, they are of a foliar nature. That, 
when they have clasped a support, they twine half their length in one direction 
and the other half in the reverse direction, with a kink in the middle, is a 
