sechino (sekeno)

[It.] See sequin. Sechium (sē'ki-um), n. [NL. (P. Browne, 1756), so called, it is said, because used to fatten hogs in Jamaica; prop. * Secium, shaped corolla, five free anthers (four with two flexuous cells and the other with but one), a six-lobed stigma, and a bristly and spindle-shaped one-celled ovary with a single ovule which matures into a smooth woody roundish seed with very large cotyledons. The only species, S. edule, is an annual climbing vine with roughish stems, native of the West Indies, cultivated in southern Europe and trop ical America and Asia for its large edible fleshy fruit, which is oblong or pear-shaped and conspicuously furrowed. It bears thin heart-shaped and five-angled leaves, tendrils with two to five branches, and small yellow flowers in long racemes, the solitary fertile flower in the same raceme with the very numerous staminate ones. The fruits are very prickly, green and shining, white within, and about 4 inches long, and, like the large starchy roots, are eaten boiled with meat or as a vegetable. They are called vegetable pears in the British colonies. The large green seed protrudes from one end and often germinates before falling. See cheyote, the native name.