THE PRINCIPLES OF BOTANY. 
11 
general public, the antiquaries, and those essentially 
“ practical men,” the farriers. 
THE PRINCIPLES OF BOTANY. 
By Professor James Buckman, F.G.S., F.L.S., &c. &c. 
('Continued from p. 925, vol. xlv.) 
\Ye have now arrived at the Cucurbit ales , in which will be 
found an alliance of plants at once beautiful, curious, inter¬ 
esting, and useful. They are diagnosed as follows : 
Alliance XXIV.— CUCURBITALES. 
The Cucurbital Alliance. 
Diclinous exogens, with monodichlamydeous flowers, inferior 
fruit, parietal placenta, and embryo without a trace of albumen. 
“ The plants of this alliance,” says Dr. Lindley, “ differ 
from all others in their declinous flowers, combined with an 
inferior ovary, whose placentse are more or less manifestly pa¬ 
rietal. They approach Menispermads in their scrambling 
habits, and Passionworts in their placentation. In the greater 
part the stigmas are horseshoe shaped. They differ from 
Papayals in their inferior ovary and exalbuminous seeds, and 
from the scrambling genera of Euphorbials in the same 
circumstances.” This alliance contains three natural orders, 
namely— 
1. CucuRBiTACEiE, fruit pulpy, flowers monopetalous. 
2. Datiscace^e, fruit dry, flowers apetalous. 
S. Begoniace^e, jfrwi/ dry, flowers monodichlamydeous. 
These characters are sufficiently simple to enable us to 
make out alliances and divergences, and we shall now, therefore, 
leave these more technical details for a more pleasing general 
description of the Cucurbits and Begonias. The beautiful 
climbing plant of our hedges known as the Bryonia dioica, 
white bryony, with its deeply lobed vine-like leaves, twisted 
tendrils, delicate yellowish flowers, which are succeeded by 
bunches of scarlet berries, is, as stated by Mr. Bentham, 
“ common in hedges and thickets, in Central and Southern 
Europe to the Caucasus. Occurs in most English counties, 
and common in some, but rare in the north and in Wales, 
and does not extend into Scotland or Ireland. It must not 
