1074
ELEMENTS OF MATERIA MEDICA.
1 nt CO^ 0
(stipules, St. Hit.) Leaves palmatecl, or with palmate ribs, very succule ,with numerous asperities. Flowers white, red, or yellow (Lindley). . re Jra5 llCProperties. —Variable; suspicious. The roots and fruits of many speciescathartics. The fruits of other species are employed as articles of food.
Sex, Syst. Monoecia, Syngenesia* (Linn.)
(Peponum Pulpa Exsiccata, L. —Pulp of the Fruit, E. —Fructus pulpa, D.)
History. —Colocynth is supposed to be the plant termed, i nTestament (2 Kings, iv. 39), the wild vine (literally the vine of tie ^whose fruit the Sacred historian calls pakkoth, a word whic ^ eJte itranslation is rendered wild gourd. To understand the passageto, it is to be remembered that different kinds of gourd are cot ^ofi)used in the East for shredding into pottages ( Picture Bible,Colocynth was employed by the Greeks at a very early period. K, eScrates (263 & 265, ed. Fees.) employed KoXok-vrS’ir aypia [cucurbit 0 ' ^joiiiris, or wild gourd) only in pessaries for bringing on mens r a,Dioscorides (lib. iv. cap. 178) gives a good description of co -Pliny {Hist. Nat. xx. 8, ed. Yalp.) calls it colocynthis. _ p u ]ateBotany. Gen. Char. — Calyx tubular-campanulate, with sl * t tosegments scarcely the length of the tube. Petals scarcely adlie , eS :each other and to the calyx. Males: stamina five, triadelphous. r ce \[e&-stigmas three, thick, bipartite. Fruit (peponida) three- to ?lX j lC ni' rSeeds ovate, compressed, not marginate.— Flowers monoecious orphrodite, yellow (D. C.) or dat e '
Sp. Char. — Stem procumbent, somewhat hispid. Leaves pe-ovate, many-lobed, white, with hairs beneath ; the lobes obtuse, j.^y,tides as long as the lamina. Tendrils short. Flowers axillary, ^3,stalked; females with the tube of the calyx globose, somewba ] 0 -the limb campanulate, with narrow segments. Petals small- * pjttt’fbose, smooth, yellow when ripe, with a thin solid rind and a ' er )
flesh (D. C.) branch^'
Root annual, white, branched. Stems herbaceous, angular, o ^(diLeaves bright green on the upper side, paler and clothed leaf-
hairs underneath. Tendril filiform, branching, opposite ea
n,as ten
* The followers of Linnaeus are by no means agreed with their grea . j ta ce‘ ,B9among themselves, as to the true order of Cucumis, and some other cucu^ pave 8,1genera. The male flowers have, apparently, three stamina; but of‘these t« Jotibb'anomalous structure, and are regarded by some botanists as stamina w' H e, f { ,folded anthers; by others, as being composed each of two adherent stamm 0 ^. ta |[ii'i>some have regarded the flowers as triandrous, some as pentandrous j 6 |e .
into account the adhesion of the stamina, consider them to be syngenesious,(polyadelphous), or momdelphous. So that while Linnaeus adopted Monoecia.sia. as the class and order, Turton placed Cucumis in Monoecia, Triandrta, ^ ed.)'Monoecia, Pentandria; or Mon. Polyadelphia (see his Jntrod. to Botany, l 1 -' ’j c 1 ’"Willdenovv, Persoon, Loudon, &c. in Monoecia, Monadelphia ; while ,' i ’C en ^rfaddp^ ‘ > 'formity with his modification of Linnaeus ’s sexual system, places it in ■»"Monandria.