Chap. X. CL CURBITACEOUS PLANTS. 383 



presume tliat it will not "be disputed that we here have 

 instances of great variability in organs of the highest 

 physiological importance, and with most plants of the highest 

 classifies tory importance. 



Sageret 141 and Naudin found that the encumber (C. satiws) 

 could not be crossed with any other species of the genus ; therefore 

 no doubt it is specifically distinct from the melon. This will 

 appear to most persons a superfluous statement ; yet we hear from 

 Naudin 14 ' 2 that there is a race of melons, in which the fruit is 

 so like that of the cucumber, " both externally and internally, that 

 it is hardly possible to distinguish the one from the other except 

 by the leaves." The varieties of the melon seem to be endless, 

 for Naudin after six years' study had not come to the end of them : 

 he divides them into ten sections, including numerous sub- varieties 

 which all intercross with perfect ease. 143 Of the forms considered 

 by Naudin to be varieties, botanists have made thirty distinct 

 species ! " and they had not the slightest acquaintance with the 

 multitude of new forms which have appeared since their time." 

 Nor is the creation of so many species at all surprising when we 

 consider how strictly their characters are transmitted by seed, 

 and how wonderfully they differ in appearance : " Mira est quidem 

 foliorum et habitus diversitas, sed multo magis fructuum," says 

 Naudin. The fruit is the valuable part, and this, in accordance 

 with the common rule, is the most modified part. Some melons 

 are only as large as small plums, others weigh as much as sixty-six 

 pounds. One variety has a scarlet fruit! Another is not more 

 than an inch in diameter, but sometimes more than a yard in 

 length, "twisting about in all directions like a serpent." It is 

 a singular fact that in this latter variety many parts of the plant, 

 namely, the stems, the footstalks of the female flowers, the middle 

 lobe of the leaves, and especially the ovarium, as well as the mature 

 fruit, ali show a strong tendency to become elongated. Several 

 varieties of the melon are interesting from assuming the charateristic 

 features of distinct species and even of distinct though allied 

 genera : thus the serpent-melon has some resemblance to the fruit 

 of Trichosanthes anguina ; we have seen that other varieties closely 

 resemble cucumbers; some Egyptian varieties have their seeds 

 attached to a portion of the pulp, and this is characteristic of 

 certain wild forms. Lastly, a variety of melon from Algiers is 



141 ' Memoire sur les Cucurbitacees,' Memoir on Cucumis in ' Annal. des Sc. 



1826, pp. 6, 24. Nat.,' 4th series, Bot. torn. xi. 1859, 



»« ' Flore des Serres,' Oct. 1861, p. 5. 

 quoted in ' Gardener's Chronicle,' 143 See also Sageret's ' Memoire/ 



1861, p. 1135. I have often consulted p. 7. 

 and taken some facts from M. Naudin's 



