88 ON THE VEGETATION OP MALAYSIA, 



call them Batteka, Mandiki, and Seraangka. The Musk Melon 

 is distinguished as Semangka belanda. Though long thought to 

 be indigenous to southern Asia, the fruit is now generally- 

 admitted to be of African origin. Cucumis trigonus, Roxb., is a 

 coQimon wild species in Asia, extending to Australia. The only- 

 absolute difference between it and the wild Melon is that the 

 former has a perennial root, while the Melon is strictly an 

 annual. Most probably all the species are only forms of C. melo, 

 and therefore the exclusively African origin of the plant cannot be 

 maintained ; for if the Asiatic species may have been an ancient 

 escape from cultivation, this cannot be the case with the Aus- 

 tralian ones, which have been found wild in the interior by the 

 first explorers, from New South Wales right round to north- 

 western Australia. 



Carica papaya^ the Papaw tree or Kattosh of the Malays, is 

 found in the whole of Malaysia. The Gulf of Mexico or the 

 West Indies is supposed to be .the original habitat ; but it is 

 so widely spread in Malaysia that it must have been in 

 cultivation shortly after the advent of Europeans to these regions. 

 The property attributed to the milky juice of rendering meat 

 tender has been much exaggerated, though probably having some 

 foundation in fact. The fruits in Malaysia are small ; they are 

 cooked unripe as a vegetable (the seeds being removed), or eaten 

 as a fruit when ripe. The seeds resemble in flavour Tropmolum 

 majus^ commonly called Nasturtium, a name properly belonging to 

 the Water-Cress, 



Of Passiflorace^, whose fruit is eaten, the most important are 

 Passijiora filamentosa, pallida, lutea, coccinea, maliformis, quad- 

 rangularis, laurifolia, edulis, incarnata, and serrata ; Tacsonia 

 rnoUissima, tripartita and speciosa ; and the Madagascar shrub 

 called Paropsia edulis (Lindley). None of these can be said to 

 be much, if at all, in cultivation in Malaysia. 



Inocarjms edulis (Gajam, Malay) is found in the Moluccas 

 producing a nut which is cooked and eaten in Java. It is found 

 in a few places in cultivation. Fersea gratissima, Gaertn., or the 



