N. 0. CUCURBIT ACE.®. 
605 
Perennial herbs, climbing, with 2-fid tendrils. Rootstock 
large, tuberous. Stems very slender, glabrous, often spotted 
with darker green ; internodes very long. Leaves 3-5in., ovate- 
rotundate in outline, very deeply cordate at base, cut nearly 
to the base into 5-lanceolate or linear-acute, coarsely serrate 
segments, the two basal ones deeply pedate, glabrous, thin, 
the upper surface slightly rough, with minute scattered scales. 
Petiole i-lfin. Flowers very pale yellow, in small clusters of 3-6, 
on short pedicels. Calyx-segments linear, filiform. Corolla- 
segments oval-oblong, acute, pubescent. Fruit globose, over fin. 
diam., smooth, bluish green, with broad, white, vertical stripes. 
Seeds fin. gibbous at sides, with a prominent raised band round 
the edge. 
Use : — The whole plant is collected when in fruit for 
medicinal use. It is bitter and aperient, and is considered to 
have tonic properties (Dymock). 
550 . Mukia scabrella , Am. h.f.b.i., ii. 623 . 
Syn. : — Bryonia scabrella, Linn., f. Roxb. 702. 
Vern. : — Bilari, agumaki (H.); Gwala-kakri (U. P.); Chirati, 
bellari (Sind.); Musu-musuk-kai (Tam.);, Kutarubudama, 
putribudinga (Tel.) ; Chirati (Mar.). 
Habitat : — Common throughout India. 
Perennial herbs ; tendrils simple. Stems climbing, long, 
slender, much-branched, angular, very hispid, with spreading 
bristly hairs, young parts covered densely with white hair. 
Leaves valuable in size, usually 3-4in., but often only lin. or 
less, deltoid-ovate, very deeply, cordate at base, with a white 
sinus, and the rounded lobes often overlapping, acute or obtuse 
at apex, rather shallowly 5-lobed, . coarsely dentate-serrate, 
usually scabrous, with stiff hairs on both sides. Petiole fully 
half as long as the leaves, cylindric, very hispid. Flowers very 
small, males on sessile peduncles as long as calyx ; females 
nearly sessile. Calyx hairy, segments linear. Petals ovate, 
ciliate, a little longer than Calyx-segments. Berry about fin., 
broadly ovoid, apiculate, with a few scattered hairs. Fruit scarlet 
