Tas. 6206. 
CUCUMIS sativus, var. SIkKIMENSIS. 
Cultivated in the Himalaya Mountains. 
Nat. Ord. Cucurbrrace£,—Tribe CUCUMERINES. 
Genus Cucumis, Linn. (Benth, et Hook. f., Gen. Plant, vol. i., p. 826). 
Cucumis sativus, Linn., Naudin in Ann. Se. Nat., ser. 4, vol. xi., p. 27. 
Var. Sikkimensis, fractu clavato cylindraceo v. obtuse 3-gono levi v. obscure 
pustulato colore ochreo plagis parvis brunncis densissime tessellato, pla- 
centis 3-5, carne albo, 
Concombre de Sikkim, Nawd., I.c., 28. 
This singular form of the common Cucumber, though very 
commonly cultivated in the Eastern Himalaya Mountains, 
appears never to have been noticed horticulturally or botani- 
cally till I found it in Sikkim in 1848, and whence I brought 
drawings and specimens to England. These were described 
by M. Naudin in 1859, in his essay on the species and 
varieties of Cucumis in the “ Annales des Sciences Naturelles,” 
under the name of Concombre de Sikkim, and he says of it 
that it is the most remarkable variety of the common 
Cucumber known to him, whether for the length or for the 
bulk of its fruit, which I have found to attain one and a 
quarter foot in length and a girth of fifteen inches. It is 
grown in all parts of the Sikkim and in the Nepal Himalaya, 
up to 5000 feet elevation, in prodigious quantities. It ripens 
in July and August, or carlier at lower elevations, when the 
fruits are sold in the markets and eaten raw by the natives 
of all ages, as well as cooked. So abundant were they in the 
year 1848, that for days together I saw gnawed fruits lying 
by the natives’ paths by thousands, and every man, woman, 
and child seemed engaged throughout the day in devouring 
them. How far westward its cultivation extends I do not 
know; Mr. Hodgson informed me that it was as common in 
Central Nepal as in Sikkim, but curiously enough I find no 
notice of it in Royle’s exhaustive work on the useful plants 
of the Western Himalaya, though he mentions the Cucumber 
as being commonly cultivated. 
January Ist, 1876. 
