S. NAZIMUDDIN AND S. SHAHARYAR H. NAQVI
Colocynthis Mill.
Annual or perennial, trailing or climbing herbs, monoecious. Tendrils simple, or proximally 2-3(-4)-fid. Leaves simple, usually deeply bipinnately lobed. Flowers yellow, medium sized; all (male and female) flowers solitary. Calyx short, campanulate, calyx lobes moderately large. Petals 5, united below the middle. Stamens inserted on the tube, 3, two 2-thecous, one 1-thecous, free, connective broad, thecae flexuous. Ovary hairy, subglobose, ovules many, horizontal; staminodes present; stigma 3-lobed. Fruit medium to large, globose or subspherical, greenish, pericarp firm, mesocarp fleshy, indehiscent. Seeds many, usually ovate in outline, compressed, smooth or slighty rough.
A small genus of 3 species in Africa and Asia. Represented here by one wild and one cultivated species.
