Cucurbitaceae
S. NAZIMUDDIN AND S. SHAHARYAR H. NAQVI
Department of Botany, University of Karachi, Karachi-32.
Annual or perennial herbs or undershrubs, prostrate or climbing, mostly with simple or branched tendrils. Leaves exstipulate, petiolate, alternate, lamina entire or palmately, pedately or pinnately divided, rarely compound. Inflorescence paniculate, racemose, umbellate or subumbellate or flowers solitary. Flowers unisexual (plants then monoecious or dioecious), very rarely bisexual, actinomorphic, yellow or white. Sepals mostly 5, united into a rotate, campanulate, saucer-shaped or tubular calyx, adnate to and often produced beyond the ovary in female flowers, with 5, imbricate or open lobes. Petals mostly 5, free or united into a rotate or campanulate corolla, with 5, imbricate or induplicate-valvate, entire or rarely fimbriate lobes. Stamens basically 5, of which 4 mostly connate in pairs, thus giving false impression of only 3 stamens or sometimes 2 or 1 due to cohesions, anthers connate or free, all monothecous when all stamens free, 1 monothecous and other 2 dithecous when stamens 3, thecae straight, curved, flexuous or conduplicate, connective often produced; staminodes often present in female flowers. Carpels (2-) 3 (-5), syncarpous; ovary inferior to semi-inferior, mostly unilocular, rarely more loculed, ovules numerous, anatropous with parietal, fleshy placentas, mostly meeting in the middle; style simple, rarely (2-) 3, free, stigmas (2-) 3, bilobed, thick. Fruit an elongated or globose berry or pepo, rarely capsule, indehiscent or variously dehiscent, smooth or covered with tubercles or prickles. Seeds mostly flattened, occasionally winged, exalbuminous, embryo straight.
A family of about 120 genera and 825 species, mostly distributed in tropical countries, poorly represented in temperate regions. Represented in Pakistan by 17 genera and 32 specific and infraspecific taxa. Taxa marked with an asterisk (*) are known from cultivation only.
Excluded species
Zehneria scabra (Linn. f.) Sond. in Harv. & Sond., Fl. Cap. 2:486. 1862. (Melothria perpusilla (Bl.) Cogn. in A. & C. DC., Monogr., Phan. 3:607. 1881).
Bryonia scabra Linn. f., Suppl. 423. 1871.
Stewart, l.c. doubtfully included the taxon on the report of Shaukat Ali Chaudhri but so far no authentic specimen has been seen either by Stewart or by the present authors. It appears that this Afro, Indo-Malayan element does not occur in Pakistan.
Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Mr. C. Jeffrey (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew) for kindly going through the manuscript and offering suggestions for its improvement. The financial assistance received from the United States Department of Agriculture under P.L. 480 with the coordination of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, Islamabad, is thankfully acknowledged.
