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Cucurbitaceae

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a botanical order of dicotyledons, containing 87 genera and about 650 species, found in the temperate .and warmer parts of the earth but especially developed in the FIG. I. - Bryonia dioica, Bryony, about a nat. size. 1, Part of corolla of male flower with attached stamens; 2, female flower after xemoval of calyx and corolla; 3, berries; I, 2, 3 about nat. size.

tropics. The plants are generally annual herbs, climbing by means of tendrils and having a rapid growth. The long-stalked leaves are arranged alternately, and are generally palmately lobed and veined. The flowers or inflorescences are borne in the leaf-axils, in which a vegetative bud is also found, and at the side of the leaf-stalk is a simple or branched tendril. There has been much difference of opinion as to what member or members the tendril represents; the one which seems most in accordance with facts regards the tendril as a shoot, the lower portion representing the stem, the upper twining portion a leaf. The flowers are unisexual, and strikingly epigynous, the perianth and stamens being attached to a bell-shaped prolongation of the receptacle above the ovary. The five narrow pointed sepals are followed by five petals which are generally united to form a more or less bell-shaped corolla. There are five stamens in the male flowers; the anthers open towards the outside, are FIG. 2.

of cucumber 4, Female flower.

5, Horizontal plan of male flower.

6, Transverse section of fruit, about 3 nat. size.

1 and 4 nat. size.

one-celled, with the pollen-sacs generally curved and variously united. The carpels, normally three in number, form an ovary with three thick, fleshy, bifid placentas bearing a large number of ovules on each side, and generally filling the interior of the ovary with a juicy mass. The short thick style has generally three branches each bearing a fleshy, usually forked stigma. The fruit is a fleshy many-seeded berry with a tough rind (known as a pepo), and often attains considerable size. The embryo completely fills the seed.

The order is represented in Britain by bryony (Bryonia dioica), (fig. 1) a hedge-climber, perennial by means of large fleshy tubers which send up each year a number of slender angular stems. The leaves are heart-shaped with wavy margined lobes. The flowers are greenish, a to - in. in diameter; the fruit, a red several-seeded berry, is about 4 in. in diameter.

Many genera are of economic importance; Cucumis (fig. 2) affords cucumber and melon; Cucurbita, pumpkin and marrow; Citrullus vulgaris is water-melon, and C. Colocynthis, colocynth; Ecballium Elaterium (squirting cucumber) is medicinal; Sechium edule (chocho), a tropical American species, is largely cultivated for its edible fruit; it contains one large seed which germinates in situ. Lagenaria is the gourd. The fruits of Luf'a aegyptiaca have a number of closely netted vascular bundles in the pericarp, forming a kind of loose felt which supplies the well-known loofah or bath-sponge.