THE INFLUENCE OF POLLEN UPON THE QUALITY 
UF THE FRUIT. 
SBY;-GUSITAV EISEN, 
In.1884 a friend who follows the vocation of druggist suggested 
to me the cultivation of colocynth, the object being to supply the 
home market with the home-grown drug. I accordingly procured 
from a drug store several imported colocynths ( Gitrullus colocynthis ) 
containing fertile seeds. In size these colocynths resembled small 
oranges, and were otherwise characteristic of the species. The seeds 
were planted, and the plants grew and produced fruit. Within a 
few feet of these colocynths I had also planted seed of the water- 
melon variety known as the citron-watermelon. When the colo- 
cynths bore I found that nearly all the fruit were hybrids between 
the colocynth and the citron-watermelon. That this hybridization 
had not been produced by a previous pollination between the two 
species was evident. The fruits on the colocynth plants were not 
equally affected. Some were small, almost like their parent colo- 
cynths, others again two or three times larger, and some again as 
_ large as the citron-watermelons, all partaking more or less of the 
characteristics of the citron-watermelon. The new fruit was neither 
sufficiently bitter, nor would it dry readily, and it was accordingly 
worthless as a drug. : 
As the seeds came from imported colocynths, and as the fruits 
were unequally affected, there remains only one explanation of the 
cause of the hybridization. The pollen of the citron-watermelon 
had been transferred to the colocynth flowers and affected the fruit 
the same season. 
Similar instances are not very rare. A friend informs me that at 
some places in San Diego County it is difficult to produce good 
muskmelons, on account of the number of native wild cucurbita- 
_ ceous plants abounding in the vicinity. These native gourds are 
probably Cucurbita palmata and C. perennis, very different in ap- 
pearance from the cultivated muskmelons. The melons produced 
on the latter are affected by the pollen from the wild species, pro- 
ce ducing unpalatable fruit. 
