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melopepon is eaten, while in the fepon it is rejected. If we trans- 
late stkuos spermapas as a cucumber with seed in the flesh, we 
would have the watermelon as it popularly might be described. 
In the Geoponics, a compilation of about 920 A. D., melopepons 
are described as cooling, as quenching thirst in fevers, and it is 
implied that the fruit is occasionally. bitter: remarks that would 
apply to the watermelon. The relationship to the cucumber, as 
indicated by the appellation szkuos spermapas, finds like expres- 
sion in the watermelon names of miore modern terms, such as 
citrull cucumber of Lyte, 1578 and Gerarde, 1597; concombre 
citrin of Dodonzus, 1554, Lobel, 1591, etc., or even a like name 
with the cucumber, as cocomber, cogombro, and gurchen of 
Pinaeus, 1561-; concombre in Charante, France, as late as 
1827, etc. 
PUMPKIN. 
The first appearance of this word that I detect is in Evelyn’s 
translation of Quintyne, 1693. The pumpkin was called pepons 
and pompons by Lyte, 1578; pompion by Gerarde, 1597 ; pumpion 
by Smith, 1614; pompeon and pumpeon by Worlidge, 1683 ; 
pumkin and pumpkin by Evelyn, 1693; pompkin in Miller’s 
Botanicon, 1722. The foreign words of similar derivation are the 
Belgian pepoen, pompoen, the French pepon and pompon, the 
German feponen, the Italian pepon, pepone, pepont, popont, the 
Swedish pompa, pumpa. 
May not the origination of the word pumpkin be from pome- 
kin, a kind of pome? In 1536 Ruellius says Palladius called 
melons ‘melones a malorum figura, quasi pomeos appellant,’ 
which name yet remains. It is more fanciful than correct to 
suggest the derivation from pomp, the radical sense being to 
swell, to dilate, and £zz a kind. But historically it is seen that 
the origin is from pepo, pepon, pompon, words once in use for 
the melon, and which were transferred, along with modifications, 
to the pumpkin about 1554. 
CITRULLUS. 
This word, which appears as Citrullus vulgaris, Schrad., Cu- 
cumis citrullus, Ser. and Cucurbita citrullus, L., also appears in 
the earlier English name for the watermelon as citrul/s, cucumber 
citrulls and pome citruls, and is allied to the concombre citrin of 
