part, after a careful study of many African species of Cucumis, 

 I am strongly disposed to regard C. Angaria as a cultivated 

 annual state of some one of them, and originally brought by 

 the Negroes from Africa, though so altered by cultivation 

 that it may not be possible to say of which. It clearly 

 belongs to the group including the bitter perennial C. pro- 

 phetarum, L., which inhabits the drier parts of Africa and 

 Arabia, and is conspicuous for its scabridity and its ashy 

 white hispid pubescence ; but which in moister parts of 

 Africa is represented by the perennial C. Figarii, which is 

 green, and of which the foliage and fruit are very similar 

 indeed to those of C. Anguria ; all these have ovoid hemes 

 covered with soft spines and striped with white, and their 

 floral characters are identical. 



The specimen here drawn flowered at the Horticultural 

 Society's Garden at Chiswick, in August of the present year, 

 and the fruit ripened in November. There is an excellent 

 description of it by Naudin in the Annates des Sciences Na- 

 turelles, where it is stated to be abundantly cultivated in 

 New Grenada, and latterly in Algeria. M. Naudin ably dis- 

 cusses the affinities of C. Anguria, but pronounces against its 

 possible identity with C. Figarii or C. prophetarum. — 

 /. JD. H. 



