PARK AND CEMETERY. 
ness until spring. Some of the species prefer to 
flower in winter or early spring; others flower in 
autumn, but probably several could be humored to 
our seasons. 
Carica Papaya is the “Papaw” of the tropics, 
but extends to Southern United States territory. 
It has no connection or affinity with the northern 
shrub bearing its com- 
mon name. 
Lageuuria, the bot- 
tle gourd, is monotypic 
and adventive south. 
Momordica has 25 
species, natives of trop- 
ical Asia, Africa and 
Australia; M.Charantia 
and M. balsamea, with 
showy fruit, are grown 
in gardens to some ex- 
tent, and have natural- 
ized in parts of the 
United States having 
protracted measures of 
tropical heat. 
Luff a has seven species, all tropical, but L. 
acutangula has escaped from cultivation at southern 
points. The young fruit of this species is used in 
India, but some of the others are violent cathartics. 
Bryonia has eight species in Europe and the 
Canaries. B. dioica is the only British plant be- 
longing to this tribe. It is a little remarkable that 
none of these plants have become adventive in the 
States. They have perennial roots, with rather 
pretty foliage, on vines full of bright red berries in 
autumn, when they enliven the hedgerows over 
which they climb. 
Cucumis, the cucumbers and melons, have 
twenty-six species, natives of Asia and Africa. The 
garden varieties are without number. 
Citrullus is the watermelon genus, also from 
tropical Asia and Africa, but said to be adventive 
on the Mexican border. There are three species, 
and innumerable varieties. 
Sicana, in two species, recently introduced from 
the West Indies and South America, has useful 
cucumber-like and round fruit. 
Cucurbit a is the pumpkin, squash and gourd 
genus, and are accorded ten species. The varieties 
are endless, and often very ornamental. They are 
all regarded as tropical, but they are very much at 
home in the United States; in fact, two or three are 
deemed natives; C. feetidissirna extending well 
north in Nebraska, with large roots, leaves and 
flowers, and fruit is regarded as perennial. Thladi- 
antha dubia, with bright red fruit, is perennial in 
Southern England. The fruits of some enter largely 
191 
into the domestic economy of the people in all warm 
countries, or in countries having warm summers. 
There are over eighty genera in the various cu- 
curbitaceous tribes, and several such as Echinocystis, 
Sicydium, Sicyos, Sicyosperma, etc., are natives, 
the first named often grown in gardens north- 
wards for covering porches and arbors. 
Begonia is an immense genus of between 400 
and 500 species, natives of the tropics and sub- 
BKGONIA MAN 1CATA AUREA. 
tropics of Asia, America, Africa and some of its 
islands, and the islands of the Pacific. 
There are but two other genera in the tribe, and 
one is regarded as anomalous. The whole of them 
seem rather anomalous among passion flowers and 
cucumbers, but botanists have excellent reasons 
for placing them in alliance, they say. Whether 
they have or not is not a question here, but only 
whether a good garden group can be formed within 
the limits assigned. In the tropics or sub-tropics 
there is no question, and none where tropical 
summer plants are used, but there is only one 
hardy begonia for the Middle States. B. Evansiana 
is perfectly hardy at Princeton, N. J., and pos- 
sibly further north under south walls and similar 
favoring conditions. It is an Eastern Asiatic 
species, and some effort should be made to. secure 
hybrid varieties of so handsome a plant, which 
hitherto does not appear to have yielded any. B. 
Veitchi was reckoned hardy in England at one 
time, although it does not now appear among the 
herbaceous plants at Kew. Possibly these two spe- 
cies, or B. Evansiana fertilized with some African 
