096 
LVII. CUCURBIT ACEjE. 
[WinWord ica. 
Female peduncle slender, 1 to Bin. long, bracteate towards the base. Ovary 
fusiform, rostrate, nmricate, 8 to Gin. long, rostrate, with tuberculate ridges, the 
tubercles triangular. Seeds few, like those of M. Balsam hm, but more sculptured. 
— Wight, Ic. t. 504. 
Hab.: India and Africa. Naturalised in Queensland. 
0. CUCUMIS, Linn. 
(Derivation obscure.) 
Calyx in the males, and free part of it in the females turbinate or campanulate, 
with 5 teeth or lobes. Corolla campanulate, deeply 5-lobed or divided to the 
calyx. Stamens 8 ; filaments short, free ; anthers two with 2 cells, one with 1 
cell ; cells linear, fiexuose, connective produced into a crest-like appendage beyond 
the cells. Ovary in the female with 8 (rarely 5) placentas and numerous horizontal 
ovules; style short, with 8 (rarely 5) obtuse stigmas. Fruit .variously shaped, 
fleshy with a hard rind, indehiscent or rarely tardily opening in 3 valves. Seeds 
oblong, compressed, the margin not thickened. — Climbers either annual or with a 
perennial rhizome, more or less hispid. Tendrils simple. Flowers yellow, the 
males in axillary clusters or rarely solitary, the females solitary, usually sessile or 
shortly pedicellate. 
The genus extends over the tropical and subtropical regions of the New and the Old World. 
The only Australian species is a common one in Asia. 
1. C. trigonus (somewhat triangular fruit), Roxb. FI. Iiul. iii. 722 ; Benth. 
FI. Austr. iii. 317. A rather slender creeper or climber, sometimes rigidly 
hispid, almost aculeolate, sometimes scabrous-pubescent. Leaves not large, 
usually broadly ovate-cordate in their outline, either nearly entire or more or less 
3, 5, or 7-lobed, the lobes slightly or sometimes more deeply toothed, usually 
scabrous. Flowers small, on short slender pedicels. Calyx in the males from a 
little more than 1 line to nearly 2 lines long, pubescent-hirsute or densely woolly ; 
lobes short and narrow. Corolla about Un. diameter, the lobes acute. Female 
flowers usually rather larger, the adnate tube ovoid or oblong, 3 to 4 lines long, 
tomentose-pubescent or densely woolly. Fruit globular or ovoid, often quite 
glabrous, but sometimes retaining a few scattered hairs, from under lin. diameter 
to more than twice that size. — Wight, Ic. t. 497 ; Naud. in Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 4 
xi. 30; C. pubescem, Hook, in Mitch. Trop. Austr. 110; C.jucundus and C. picro- 
carpus, F. v. M. in Trans. Phil. Inst. Viet. iii. 46. 
Hab.: Suttov and Bogan Rivers, Bowman: Fort Cooper, Thozet; Balonne River, Mitchell: 
Darling River to Cooper’s Creek ; and many other localities. 
The only absolute difference to be gathered from Naudin’s investigations between C. trigonus, 
and what he concludes to be the wild Melon (C. Melo, var. agrestis, Naud. in Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 
4 xi. 73; C. pubescens, of Indian botanists, Wight, Ic. t. 496, and probably of Willd.) , is, that 
the former has a perennial root, or rather rhizome, and roots very readily at the joints, whilst 
the Melon is strictly annual. As, however, the stems are always annual, the existence of the 
perennial rhizome is rarely ascertained except in cultivation, and no collector of Australian 
specimens alludes to it. Some of these look very much like Indian specimens of the wild Melon, 
others have more the appearance of the Indian C. trigona , and some are not to be distinguished 
from the New Caledonian C. Pancherianus, Naud. in Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 4 xii. 112 t. 8. Most 
probably all are forms only of C. Melo. — Bentli. 
Until our plants are more fully studied under cultivation, it is better to leave them with the 
above note from Benth. in FI. Austr. 
7. *CITRULLUS, Schrad. 
(Supposed Orange-like fruit.) 
Flowers all solitary, monoecious. Male flowers : Calyx-tube campanulate, 
5-lobed ; corolla campanulate, 5-lobed to below the middle, lobes obtuse ; fila- 
ments 3, very short, free, inserted within the tube ; anthers slightly cohering, 
