Sicyos. | CUCURBITACEAE. 883 
A natural and well-defined family, spread over the tropics and warmer portions 
of the temperate zones, nearly absent in cold climates. Genera about 85; species 
nearly 700. The family is mainly important on account of the edible fruits which many 
species produce, as the pumpkin, melon, water-melon, cucumber, &c. Others are acrid 
and purgative, as colocynth and bryony, and are used in medicine. The common gourd 
(Lagenaria vulgaris), the hard-rinded fruit of which is so extensively used in the tropics 
for water-vessels, &c., was introduced into New Zealand by the Maoris, and cultivated 
by them long before the advent of Europeans, but is now seldom seen. The sole 
indigenous genus (Sicyos) occurs in America, the Pacific islands, and Australasia. 
— 
SICYOS Linn. 1 /755- 
Climbing or prostrate herbs. Leaves angular or 3-5-lobed. Flowers 
small, monoecious. Male flowers racemose. Calyx-tube broadly ‘tam- 
panulate, 5-toothed. Corolla rotate, deeply 5-partite. Stamens connate 
into a short column ; anthers 2-5, sessile at the top of the column, sinuous ; 
cells confluent. Female flowers capitate on a short peduncle, rarely 
solitary. Calyx-tube adnate with the ovary; limb and corolla as in the 
male flowers. Ovary 1-celled; style short, 3-fid; ovule solitary, pendulous. 
Fruit small, coriaceous, dry, indehiscent, covered with barbed spines. 
A small genus of about 30 species, mainly from tropical America, but extending 
to Australia and the Pacific islands. The single New Zealand species has the range of 
the genus. 
1. S. angulata Linn. Sp. Plant. (1753) 1013. — Stems trailing or 
cimbing, usually from 2 to l0ft. long but sometimes much more, 
glabrous or more or less scabrid. Leaves on long petioles, 2-6in. diam. 
or more, ovate-cordate to reniform, palmately 5—7-lobed, the central lobe 
the longest, membranous, scabrid with short stiff hairs or almost glabrous ; 
tendrils very long, branched. Flowers 4in. diam., greenish; males race- 
mose on a long peduncle; females often from the same axil, capitate on a 
short peduncle. Fruits clustered, 4in. long, ovoid, compressed, densely 
covered with barbed spines.—Vorst. f. Prodr. (1786) 68; A. Rich. Fl. 
Nowv. Zel. (1832) 323; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i (1853) 72; Handb. N.Z. FI. 
(1864) 82; Benth. Fl. Austral. i (1866) 322; T. Kirk Students’ Fl. (1899) 
183; Cheesem. Man. N.Z. Fl. (1906) 190. 8. australis Hndl. Prodr. FI. 
Norf. (1833) 67; A. Cunn. Precur. (1838) n. 525. 
KerMADEC IsLanpDS: Abundant, attaining a large size, McGillivray, T. F. C. 
Nortu Is~tanp: In various places on the coast, as far south as Hawke’s Bay; more 
plentiful on the outlying islands than on the mainland. Sourn IsLanp: Queen 
Charlotte Sound, Banks and WSolander. Mawhanr. November—March. Also in 
North and South America, Australia, Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island, and Polynesia. 
Family CI. CAMPANULACEAE. 
Herbs or shrubs, usually with milky juice. Leaves alternate, seldom 
opposite, entire or toothed, rarely lobed or dissected; stipules wanting. 
Flowers hermaphrodite, rarely unisexual, regular or irregular. Calyx- 
tube adnate to the ovary; limb 4-6- usually 5-lobed. Corolla gamo- 
petalous, epigynous, regular or irregular and split to the base at the back, 
4-6-lobed ; lobes valvate, often induplicate. Stamens as many as the 
corolla-lobes and alternate with them, epigynous or more rarely inserted 
on the tube of the corolla; anthers free or united into a tube. Ovary 
